Addressing key voters' economic insecurity is vital for all parties

There is a consistent problem of economic insecurity in Britain in mid-life.

To begin to understand these patterns, consider those in the youngest age groups in the above graphs. While these individuals may be going without some of the essentials and may be in relative poverty as suggested in Figure 2c, they report below-average levels of economic insecurity and noticeably less economic security than the group immediately older than them, starting from the mid-30s. Younger adults may be considering their future prospects optimistically, their ability to borrow from family or being directly supported by family, either at the time of the survey or in the future.

Of our survey respondents under the age of 35, 32% report still living rent-free in a family or friend's home or in university accommodation. Of those under 35, 24.4% report ‘parents or grandparents’ as a current source of financial support. This rises to 27.1% if ‘other family members’ (non-spouse) are included. Of those under 35, 26.4% report being likely to inherit a substantial amount of money or property in the future, either ‘probably within the next 10 years’ (6%) or ‘probably over 10 years from now’ (20.4%).

Now consider those in the older age groups, after their mid-50s, where the feeling of economic insecurity begins to decline very markedly. These people are significantly more likely to have lower incomes (as we saw in Figure 2) and yet they report significantly higher levels of economic security than people in their mid-life.

Figure 4 uses the October 2024 NPRC/JRF Economic Insecurity survey to plot the percentage of those who are subject to 5 economic ‘stressors’, by age. These economic stressors are: having low savings (being in the bottom quintile, calculated as equivalised by household size); having unsecured or ‘bad’ debts (for example, unsecured loans, credit card or payday and overdraft debt, but excluding student loans and mortgages); currently paying off a mortgage; having childcare responsibilities; and being unable to come up with £300 for an emergency expense.

Figure 4a shows that the peak emerges in each of these financial experiences at slightly different age points, but each can help us understand the mid-life peak in economic insecurity through the addition of a range of financial difficulties which are all at their highest levels in mid-life. Older people are – on average – far more likely to have savings, lower levels of mortgage or other debts, and lower financial responsibilities for family members. As a result of this, their disposable income or ability to draw on savings (for example, if they needed to come up with £300 for an emergency expense) is substantially greater. Figure 4 also suggests that younger adults’ higher economic security is due to the absence of outgoings such as mortgages, other types of debt, and caring responsibilities for children.

Figure 4 shows the importance of mortgage debt, childcare duties and unsecured debts in particular. Importantly, the pattern we currently identify in mid-life insecurity and the above economic experiences is happening for people who are in full-time secure work or who have a partner in full-time secure work, as we see in Figure 4b, as well as for those whose household lacks a secure full-time worker (4c).⁶

We note, in addition to the patterns shown in Figure 4, that substantial proportions of those in mid-life are not only giving care to children aged under-18, but also to adult children, and older relatives. Of those aged 35–59, 34% report having to provide financial/care assistance to a child aged under 18, 13% report having to provide this support to an adult child and 17% report having to provide for a parent or grandparent. Overall, 49.2% report having to provide assistance to at least one of these three groups. Moreover, 8.4% of the midlife age group is giving care to both younger and older relatives; a problem known to befall those in a ‘sandwich generation’ of having children and older relatives to care for simultaneously (Miller 1981; Vlachantoni et al. 2020).

The differences between men and women on these economic indicators can be seen in Figure 6, which shows the different economic experiences of men and women; specifically, the higher likelihood among women of having low savings and an inability to pay an emergency expense.

Returning to Figure 5, those with a degree are more likely to report feeling secure, though the differences are quite small. Graduates tend to reach peak mid-life insecurity at slightly older ages (around 45–50) than non-graduates, who reach peak mid-life insecurity at around 35–40. This may reflect the delay in having children that typically happens among graduates, and the accumulation of other financial responsibilities that also typically start later.

Homeownership shows the largest gap in reported economic insecurity, along with the gap between those with long-term illness and/or disabilities. Focusing first on homeownership, note the dotted line showing the proportion in the sample who do not own their own home, which drops from the youngest ages onwards. Among the remaining minority who are not homeowners, economic insecurity peaks at pre-retirement age, but is very high from around the age of 40. The pre-retirement peak may reflect the awareness of one’s income prospects decreasing, but it is notable that older renters, post-retirement, still exhibit a marked decline in feelings of economic insecurity.

People with long-term illnesses and/or disabilities are much more likely to feel economically insecure. This likely arises through being unable to work or to progress in work as they would like, as well as the additional costs faced in adjusting to their conditions. Among the disabled or long-term sick of working age (18–65), for example, we note that only 39% are in full-time work (compared to 62% in the remaining sample). Of those disabled individuals who are in work, 19% think their job prospects will get worse in the next 12 months (compared to 11% of non-disabled workers). Furthermore, 27% do not have any savings and 46% are not homeowners (compared to 15% and 35% of non-disabled adults, respectively). This group also reports higher insecurity for a prolonged age span: between 35 and 60. Part of this higher rate of economic insecurity could arise from some long-term ill or disabled respondents having difficulties with aspects of mental health that make them more insecure in general, but the economic patterns we see in the data suggest this is rooted in economic experience too.

Turning to those who are in cohabiting relationships (either married or with a partner), who we can assume share economic resources to some degree, the peak in economic insecurity starts at slightly younger years, around 40, but insecurity is higher for those who are single and peaks for a prolonged period in comparison to other groups except those with long-term illnesses and/or disabilities; between 40 and 60.

Finally, having children – an additional financial burden – also increases feelings of economic insecurity, though the differences between those with and without childcare responsibilities are not large. There may be some ‘selection effects’ here because a decision to have a family is also in part an outcome of having the economic means to support one. The dotted graph in Figure 5f shows how having childcare responsibilities peaks in mid-life, and so the proportions who have children and feel economically insecure will be greater in this age range.

We can examine the relationships between demographics, economic experiences and economic insecurity using statistical models. This allows us to assess the relative strength of statistical association between different demographics, economic experiences and feelings of economic insecurity. The following plots show the statistical ‘coefficients’ (the strength of statistical association) between the demographics mentioned above, and the economic circumstances measured in the survey, and repeat the model using the March 2024 data and the October 2024 data, to examine the stability of these relationships over time.

Each ‘whisker plot’ shows the association of each variable with economic insecurity if it is analysed on its own (shown with a circle in the middle of a whisker) and then the association when other variables are also taken into account (shown with a diamond). The latter provides an estimate of the additional statistical relationship to feelings of economic insecurity, net of all the additional factors included. Black whiskers denote a significant relationship (statistically) and red whiskers denote a non-significant relationship.

Figure 7 shows that the demographics and economic factors associated with economic insecurity are stable over the 2 time periods, with very minor exceptions (the relationship of being in a cohabiting partnership is stronger in October 2024 than in March 2024, and the effects of education are only significant in October, without controls). The whiskers to the right of the vertical line at 0 indicate factors that increase feelings of economic insecurity and are statistically significant if the ‘whisker’ bar does not cross 0. The factors to the left of the vertical line at 0 indicate factors that decrease feelings of economic insecurity (the higher they are, the lower someone’s score on the economic insecurity scale). The estimates are transformed so they equate to percentage point increases or decreases, shown on the horizontal x-axis.

The influences we identified above: the life-stage a person is at, their age, gender, disability, education, owning a home and having childcare responsibilities, are all in the expected direction and all have a statistically significant effect. Having a higher income, having savings, and being in a cohabiting couple each contributes to someone feeling more economically secure, and debts and not being in secure full-time work contribute significantly to their feeling more insecure. Being in secure full-time work is an especially strong predictor, but all other factors contribute similarly. This can be concluded because these patterns remain the case if we include the other different variables as ‘controls’, so we can say, for example, that owning a home outright tends to decrease feelings of economic insecurity by around 10 percentage points, even when we take into account all the other demographics and economic factors described above (including a person’s income, savings, debts, whether they have childcare duties and likely share financial resources).

Having a disability or long-term illness also increases feelings of economic insecurity by around 10 percentage points, even accounting for income, homeownership, savings and so on. We note that the ‘classic’ indicators of economic hardship, namely income, property (homeownership) and financial wealth (the balance of income and savings), are certainly not the whole story. Indeed, income has, if anything, a slightly smaller effect in comparison to other factors, and outgoings (such as having children) and financial burden sharing (in the form of cohabitation) are equally important.

The statistical association between economic insecurity and life-stage, which we code as those between 18 and 34, those between 35 and 59, and those above 60, remains significant controlling for the other demographics and economic experiences that vary with the life-stage, though not for the comparison of the mid-life and over-60s groups, where the distinction is accounted for by the other variables.

One difficulty with assessing economic insecurity through economic stressors – through people’s reported levels of savings, debts, their home ownership and so on – is that some people will accept or feel sanguine about their levels of financial precarity and will not find them as much a source of ‘stress’ as other people may do. After all, these levels are a consequence to some degree of decisions made by the individual about what level of debt, savings or mortgage they can manage, comfortably or otherwise. Other people will be more worried about the associated financial risks. We would expect such worries to explain reported feelings of economic insecurity. We therefore focus next on understanding people’s feelings about their economic circumstances to help us interpret the experience of economic insecurity in Great Britain in 2024.

The meaning of economic insecurity: financial worries

The patterns we report above suggest that economic insecurity arises through the balance of how good a person’s ‘buffers’ are, or their economic ‘insurance’ against hard times, and the demands on their finances, in the form of mortgage debts and outgoings, which make it all the more important that a person can insure themselves effectively.

We can see that having a partner to share resources and risks, having a home, good long-term prospects (through educational attainment) and having savings as sources of financial protection are sources of economic security. Being ill or having a disability, not owning a home and having debts and low (or no) savings are all associated with a greater risk of economic insecurity. Having children increases those risks.

The economic circumstances we report above, across the lifespan, are associated with the accumulation of greater economic psychological burdens in mid-life. This can be seen using different questions in the surveys, which asked about whether respondents were worried about their income, housing tenure, job prospects (if in work or unemployed), their level of debt (if they had debts) and whether they were satisfied with their level of savings.

Specifically, we asked respondents: ‘How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?’ (1–5, strongly agree – strongly disagree, or ‘don’t know’):

• I am very worried about my level of income in the next 12 months
• I am very worried that I might have to move out of my current home in the next 12 months, not by personal choice
• I am very worried about keeping my job (If employed)
• I am very worried about my level of debt

For each of the above, we plot – in Figure 8 – the proportion who agreed or agreed strongly that they were ‘very worried’ in contrast to other responses and the respondents for whom the question did not apply. Slightly different were 2 questions about savings. Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following 2 statements:

• I am generally satisfied with the amount of savings I have
• I feel very confident that I will have a decent standard of living in old age

These 2 items were reverse coded so that the percentage of the sample who ‘disagreed’ with them was classified as having saving worries.

We can see in Figure 8 that all the measured worries tend to decline among the oldest respondents, while employment worries, debt, savings satisfaction and ‘long-term worries’ (being confident of having a decent standard of living in old age) all peak in mid-life. Income worries and housing worries tend to be high among young people and those in mid-life, but a considerable amount of psychological distress (measured as reported worries) peaks in mid-life through the accumulation of different financial worries. This is consistent with the patterns we demonstrated earlier for feelings of economic insecurity. These worries also suggest that part of the explanation for mid-life feelings of insecurity arises because people think they might not be able to improve on their problems; they expect to experience financial distress in the future too. For example, current satisfaction with the amount of one’s savings is lowest in mid-life, but so is the assessment that the respondent will not have a decent standard of living in old age.

If we take an average score across all the ‘worry’ responses from those in Figure 8a–f, we see that this peaks in mid-life, at around 2 worries per person, as shown in Figure 9a. Younger respondents have a greater average score than older respondents, and those in mid-life have the highest scores. This does not mean that each of these worries has equal importance, but it is a way of depicting how worries accumulate in mid-life, and – for current generations of older people – significantly decline in later life.

Figure 9b displays how many ‘worries’ a person reported agreeing with: 1, 2, 3, 4 or more, or none of the questions asking how worried a respondent was about their income, housing costs, job prospects, debts, savings or living standards in old age. It shows that the group with the greatest likelihood of reporting ‘no’ worries were those respondents over the age of 60. This blue line dips in mid-life, as we would expect. The proportion with ‘one’ or more worries, in contrast, rises for those in mid-life, with numbers generally peaking around 40. Nevertheless, the largest proportion of over-60s reported no worries whatsoever in relation to the topics we covered (income, housing, job prospects, debts and savings).

Each of these worries is associated, statistically, with feelings of economic insecurity. In Figure 10 we use a coefficient plot to demonstrate the statistical relationships between each ‘worry’ and feelings of economic insecurity. We find that they are broadly of equal ‘weighting’ when assessed this way, with worries about income being slightly more strongly associated with feelings of economic insecurity. We also show the proportions agreeing or disagreeing with the ‘worry’ (or satisfaction) questions on the y-axis. While each of these worries is strongly associated with feelings of economic insecurity, those who are worried about their income (36%) and dissatisfied with their levels of savings (43%) represent the largest proportions in the sample overall.

Of course, in reality, we know that people do not think about these worries in isolation. Most crucially, as we demonstrated in Figure 9b, those in mid-life will be more likely to have a combination of different worries – likely compounding their levels of insecurity – whereas those of retirement age will more likely have none or only one of these types of ‘worry’.

The age gradient is particularly pronounced for the Conservatives, and it is notable that Reform UK’s support shows its peak just past our mid-life definition; at around 60 years of age. The Conservatives are retaining, as of October 2024, their support among the oldest voters in the British electorate, but the anchoring nature of this age effect weakens among those around 60, where the Conservatives are losing support to Reform UK: the largest proportion of Reform UK’s voters were from the Conservative Party in July 2024 (Miori and Green, 2025).

Figure 12 reveals the differences in the age-vote intention relationship among those who are economically secure (Figure 12a) and economically insecure (Figure 12b). This comparison shows some important differences, which we note, again, are happening at a very early part of the electoral cycle (by October 2024).

Among the secure, the Labour and Conservative age relationship remains almost unchanged, but support for Reform UK is slightly lower than for the whole sample (shown in Figure 11). Among the insecure, however, we can see that Reform UK’s support is considerably higher, and especially increases among those in mid-life to peak around 60 years of age. Support for the Green Party is also higher, particularly among the youngest in the sample. While the age gradient for Conservative support is unchanged among the insecure, there is greater contestation between Labour and Reform UK in the mid-life range of the sample, crossing at around 50–60 years of age. This provides some evidence that there is greater electoral competition between the left-liberal and right-socially conservative party blocs in the mid-life part of the age distribution, particularly among those who report feeling economically insecure.

Electoral volatility and ‘undecided’ voters, by age and economic insecurity

Traditionally, we might expect younger voters to be especially volatile in their political support, due to their lower likelihood of forming partisan attachments which tend to increase political loyalty (Fieldhouse et al. 2020). We would also expect younger people to be less decided about their vote choice on average; they are still going through a period of political socialisation, finding out about politics and deciding which party may best represent their interests.

However, as we noted above, this assumption changes with the perception of greater representation of younger generations by left-liberal parties, at least among those younger voters who have made a political choice. If there is now greater political contestation among the mid-life group, and if this increases among those who feel economically insecure, we would expect those in mid-life to be more undecided between the parties, but for the insecure group to be exhibiting the greatest likelihood of switching their political support in response to their economic insecurity. These individuals have a greater policy-based political grievance.

We can explore these patterns by age and insecurity by examining the proportions who have switched their support between any political party, between July 2024 and October 2024, and the proportion who say they ‘don’t know’ who they would vote for in a future general election, which we display in Figure 13. In each case, the horizontal gold (switching) and grey lines (don’t know) show the average across the whole age distribution, for each group and outcome.

Figure 13 shows that electoral volatility – in the form of switching party support since the July 2024 general election – is higher among those in mid-life, but only if those respondents also report feeling economically insecure. Figure 13 also shows that the average proportion of those saying ‘don’t know’ is highest among those who are insecure, compared to the secure, and that this political uncertainty peaks in mid-life. 

The parallel nature of these patterns with the evidence we have shown throughout this report is striking. These mid-life patterns, at least in the early stage of the Labour Government’s term in office, suggest there may be a new ‘swing voter’ group in British politics that has emerged due to the political anchoring effect of youth and old age in recent British elections and, crucially, is amplified by economic insecurity.

We emphasise that these patterns could change. The fact that the political parties are currently seen as representing the young (on the left-liberal side) and older generations (on the right-socially conservative side) arises because of the nature of political competition, through ideology, image, rhetoric and so on. Were the political parties to significantly change the groups to which they are appealing – and to which they are seen to appeal – we would not necessarily expect the greatest competition to take place among voters in the mid-life part of the age distribution. However, for the reasons given throughout this report, we do expect the age distribution of economic insecurity to continue, and we consider the experience of economic insecurity to be very important at the ballot box. We provide evidence for this next.

Labour’s early vote losses among mid-life economically insecure voters

Labour had already lost support by October 2024, and subsequent opinion polls show that this has dropped further, up to the time of writing. In total, 40% of Labour’s July 2024 voters had moved by October 2024 to either ‘undecided’ or a vote intention for one of the other parties, according to our data. By usual standards, this is a very short period in which to observe defections for incoming governments, but the large amount of vote losses allows us to draw early conclusions about systematic patterns and explanations that might be expected to continue.

Furthermore, by analysing change over time, we can observe change within the same individuals who voted Labour in July but would no longer intend to vote Labour if there were ‘a general election tomorrow’, which improves the confidence we draw from observing change, as opposed to just correlation. The above evidence of greater switching and greater uncertainty among those in mid-life and among those economically insecure respondents in mid-life suggest that this is likely where Labour’s greater electoral losses have already been.

The first 100 days of the Labour Government was a period when the Government was particularly pessimistic about the UK’s economic prospects, the potential for spending on public services and the prospect of a long horizon before improvements would be noticed. The likelihood of increased measures (ostensibly taxation) was claimed to be necessary to meet the size of the deficit left by the outgoing Conservative Government, which was argued to have been larger than expected. The period included measures that elicited considerable attention in the media, such as the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance.

As expected, Labour lost votes between July and October 2024 at a greater rate among those who felt economically insecure. The ‘flow of vote’ graphs displayed in Figure 14 show that while economically insecure voters made up a smaller proportion of Labour’s July 2024 vote, compared to those who felt secure (the starting proportion is smaller on the right-hand-side graph, compared to the left-hand-side graph), the rate of ‘defecting’ from a Labour vote was higher among the insecure: 45.6% compared to 30.8%, including moving from Labour to other parties, undecided and ‘will not vote’.

The Labour Party had already lost 39% of its July 2024 voters by October 2024 to other parties and ‘undecided’, and feelings of economic insecurity are important for understanding this. Whereas the party only lost 3 in 10 (31%) of its economically ‘secure’ supporters, Labour lost almost half (46%) of its more numerous economically ‘insecure’ voters. Put differently, had Labour’s ‘insecure’ supporters defected at the same rate as its ‘secure’ ones, and everything else remained the same, Labour’s total losses would have been 5 percentage points (13%) lower in total. Had all of Labour’s non-secure July 2024 voters (including those who were neither secure nor insecure) defected at only the rate of secure supporters, total losses would have been around 8 percentage points (21%) lower.

Labour’s July 2024 vote was primarily a vote among progressive, liberal voters who were younger and with higher levels of educational attainment (see Griffiths et al. 2025), which is reflected in their reported vote losses since. Figure 14b shows that there were proportionately more defections from a Labour vote to the Liberal Democrat or Green Party vote intention compared to those to Reform UK or the Conservatives, as of October 2024, though note that the small sample sizes mean we cannot discriminate in detail.

Figure 15 shows the likelihood of switching away from Labour in this period by age; the left-hand-side graph shows the pattern by age, and the right-hand-side graph shows the pattern by economic insecurity and age. Recall that where the confidence intervals overlap the bold line in the comparison group, the patterns become statistically indistinguishable. This means that we need to focus on the differences between the shaded areas and the bold lines.

Figure 15a (defections by age) shows that defections were more likely amongst respondents aged 60 to 70. Labour had fewer over-70-year-olds among its July 2024 vote (due to its younger vote base in the election), and so the confidence intervals become wider and less reliable at the older ages. Figure 15b shows that feelings of economic insecurity are a discriminating factor for those who defect and those who do not – again, crucially, among those in mid-life. The red line shows the likelihood of defecting from Labour among the insecure, by age, and the green line shows the much lower likelihood of defecting among the secure, again by age. These lines diverge at the start of the age period we have focused on throughout this report: those in ‘mid-life’.

The importance of economic insecurity to defecting from the Labour Government is confirmed in a full statistical model (Figure 16) that takes into account a wide variety of other potentially competing factors. Here again we use a whisker plot to show the statistical effects, and add additional variables to the statistical model to see if the relationship between feelings of economic insecurity and vote defections can be explained by other factors. The relationship holds up very well. The results are reported from 4 models in turn: the first (denoted with a cross) is the bivariate relationship; just the association between feelings of economic insecurity and Labour defection. The second (denoted with a diamond) reports the relationship by adding demographic controls (age, education, gender, and household income). The third (with a triangle) reports the relationship controlling for respondents’ personal assessment of the national economy. The fourth (with a circle) adds respondents’ preferences regarding immigration and the redistribution of incomes from the well-off to the less well-off. See the note underneath Figure 16 for details.

Figure 16 confirms that an increase in the level of economic insecurity by a one standard deviation change on the scale equates to around a 5-percentage point greater likelihood of changing one’s vote intention from voting for Labour in July 2024 to no longer doing so by October 2024. This switching remains the case irrespective of the addition of statistical controls.

Moreover, we can compare the relationship between feelings of economic insecurity and voting against the Labour Government between July 2024 and October 2024 to the relationship between economic insecurity and Conservative vote losses between the December 2019 and July 2024 general elections. This is presented in Figure 17. Here, the addition of control variables reduces the size of the relationship a little, but not significantly so, and the results confirm the importance of economic insecurity to explaining Conservative defections between 2019 and 2024, as they do so far for defections from Labour since they took office.

The parallel patterns indicate that the vote losses that Labour has incurred are best understood as anti-incumbent vote losses, rather than those driven, for example, by particular types of ideological persuasion. Economic insecurity helps us understand the demise of the Conservative Government, and – at an early stage – helps us understand the electoral risks being incurred by the incoming Labour Government.

It is likely that economic insecurity is as, if not more, important for understanding Labour’s vote losses at an early stage compared to a series of other political issues. We asked our respondents for their evaluation of how well Labour was handling ‘the economic security of households’, ‘the economy’ (in general), reducing poverty, immigration, the NHS, and ‘reducing carbon emissions’, a set of issues designed to be broad for comparison, each measured on 5-point scales where 1 = very badly and 5 = very well.

The statistical association between each of these handling scores and whether a respondent voted Labour in July 2024 but no longer intended to vote Labour in October 2024 can be seen in Figure 18. Each of these is a simple bivariate association, not controlling for other factors, so these coefficients should not be seen as isolating the unique effect or relationship of any one of these handling evaluations net of the others. Nevertheless, ‘the economic insecurity of households’ comes out as the strongest statistical association, along with the economy in general.

Explaining Labour’s losses among the economically insecure

Labour is not seen by the economically insecure to be handling household economic security well. This can be seen if we compare Labour’s handling scores for those respondents who reported feeling ‘secure’ or ‘insecure’, as we do in Figure 19. This shows a doubling of those saying Labour is handling the economic security of households very badly among the insecure (41%), compared to the economically secure (20%).

Note that evaluations of Labour’s handling of household economic security are more negative than positive among both groups, with half of the secure thinking Labour is handling household economic security badly, and 70% of the insecure group doing so. Only 9.5% of secure respondents thought Labour was handling household economic security ‘well or very well’, with the figure being 5% among those who reported feeling insecure. This may be related to household economic security being something people think governments cannot handle especially well in general, or might not be expected to ‘handle well’, as opposed to being the responsibility of individuals and households, but if that were the case, it could be argued that economic insecurity should not be related to defections away from the Government at such an early stage or, for the outgoing Conservative Government, as strongly as they were between 2019 and 2024.

Unsurprisingly, there are differences between the insecure and secure in the importance they attach to the economic security of households, although both groups rate the economic security of households as very important, according to our survey. Among those who reported being economically insecure, 84% said that the economic security of households was important (scoring it 6 or above on a 0–10 scale where 0 = least important and 10 = most important), whereas 77% said so if they reported feeling secure. Tellingly, 39% of insecure respondents rated it extremely important (a 9 or 10 on the scale) whereas the same figure was only 20% among those who felt economically secure.

We also see – in Figure 20 – a bigger perceived gap between the importance to the respondent and the perceived importance of economic insecurity for households to the Labour Government. Those who attach equal importance to household economic security represent the same proportion – about one-quarter of respondents – in each group, the secure and insecure. However, those who felt insecure were more likely to rate economic insecurity as more important than they thought the Labour Party gives to the importance of household economic insecurity: 45% of the insecure rate the issue as more important than they believe is true for Labour, and 18% gave at least a 5-point gap between their own prioritisation of the issue and the extent to which they believe that Labour was prioritising it. This compares to 45% and 9%, respectively, among those who are economically secure.

Overall, the greater importance attached by respondents to household economic security than it is perceived as important to Labour suggests that it is politically important for Labour, or any political party, to match the importance attached to economic security by the general public. This is a potentially fruitful strategy both for retaining or winning back the support of those who feel insecure and retaining support among those who currently feel secure.