Why we need to be clear about inequalities

Clearer information about poverty is essential to public support for stronger welfare policies, a survey has found.

A report on public attitudes to economic inequality in the UK has shown that raising awareness of the reality of a low socio-economic status could be a key task for policy makers.

“[P]roviding more information about the barriers to opportunity faced by many people could make an important contribution towards building public support for tackling economic inequality,” the report says.

“[R]esearch [has] found that people were engaged by just such evidence and survey results indicated that exposure to it could increase support for some important policy interventions,” the report adds.

According to the results of the survey, carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, many people are misinformed about the extent of benefit fraud, how the tax system works and the reality of income across the social gradient.

This lack of proper information can lead to confused or negative attitudes, for example about the reciprocal contributions of benefit claimants and the reasons why people are on low incomes.

Along with better information, the report adds that placing an emphasis on the broader consequences of income inequality for society as whole could be an important part of policy work.

“[P]eople were engaged by research about the possible social effects of income inequality on society and found the hypothesis that income inequality might generate social problems intuitively plausible,” the report says.

Support for work across society was evident in people’s positive responses towards improving early child development.

“In the case of ‘early years’ disadvantages, participants were engaged by the evidence of early health inequalities ,” the report says.

“In the case of the school attainment gap, participants were surprised by the size of the gap between those in different socio-economic groups,” the report adds.

For more information about how public health policies affect the health inequalities among families and children, please visit the Gradient project.

An executive summary plus the full text of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report is available at http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/attitudes-economic-inequality