Excerpts from the executive summary: Participants' attitudes towards those on low incomes were often more negative and punitive than their attitudes towards those at the 'top'. Participants routinely drew on negative stereotypes of benefit recipients. Why was that? Two important drivers: 1. a widespread belief about the ready availability of opportunity, resulting in highly individualised explanations of poverty and disadvantage. 2. a belief that benefit recipients will not go on to make a reciprocal contribution back to society through activities such as employment or caring.
In line with subjective self-placement in the middle of the income spectrum, many participants wanted the tax system to treat them differently from those at the top. And in line with beliefs that the 'middle' are under most pressure, they also wanted the benefits system to treat themnot too differently from those at the bottom.
Analysis suggests that much of the UK population subscribes to some type of belief in fair inequality on the basis of desert (in other words, that some inequality is fair because it is deserved on the basis of differential effort and contribution), and, furthermore, that 'egalitarian' or 'inegalitarian' attitudes towards those at the top of the income spectrum need not necessarily be matched by similar attitudes towards those at the bottom.
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