In it together or just for ourselves?

This apparent hardening of attitudes is not unique to the UK, and appears to be part of a cross-national trend about how people think about poverty, fairness and who is best placed to do something about it. For example, across countries, people have become much more likely to agree that if someone works harder and is more productive at a given job, then they should get paid more. People are much less sympathetic to the Prodigal Son – they don’t see why the hard working brother should pick up the tab. The public have become more sceptical about the ability of the state to fix these issues – at least through welfare transfers and more attentive to the more subtle factors that help explain poverty and the cross-generational social mobility. Over half of Britons now think that unemployment benefits are too generous and discourage work, and nearly two-thirds think that parents who ‘don’t want to work’ is a key reason for why some children live in poverty. We have also become a little more wary of our fellow citizens, or at least strangers. The proportion of the people saying that ‘most other people can be trusted’ fell from nearly 2 [...]