What Do People Want From a Welfare System? Conjoint Survey Evidence From UK Adults

What do people want from a welfare system? Previous research has suggested a list of desiderata, such as that the system: reduces poverty; reduces inequality; improves mental and physical health; costs little; and rewards only the deserving. How do these different features trade off against one another to determine overall desirability? We conducted a conjoint survey experiment with 800 UK-resident adults, presenting them with hypothetical welfare schemes that varied on a large number of attributes. The strongest driver of choice was the effect on poverty: people were more likely to choose a scheme the more it reduced poverty. Respondents were prepared to trade off their preference for lower income taxes: even for center-right voters, some income tax rises would be acceptable in exchange for sufficiently large reductions in poverty. Taxes on wealth and carbon emissions were positively valued. Respondents paid some attention to the effects of schemes on inequality and health. Preferences over institutional design features to do with deservingness, such as means testing, conditionality and universality, were weak. Heterogeneity in preferences by age and political orientation were present but modest. We discuss the findings with respect to the envelope of welfare systems that would be publicly acceptable.