Linking cause and solution: Predicting support for poverty alleviation proposals

There are multiple alternative proposals for alleviating poverty, but unless these receive public support they are unlikely to be implemented. Drawing on Feagin's work, this research predicted support for different poverty alleviation proposals among Australians based on individual characteristics and attitudes, including explanations for poverty. Overall, participants (N = 526) favoured the minimum income proposal (traditional welfare) significantly more than the guaranteed jobs or equal income proposals. The results indicated differences in predictors of support for each proposal, but structural causes of poverty had the most consistent effect across all three. Other variables included gender, age, having received welfare, self‐reported social class, self‐reported financial situation, egalitarianism, conservatism, and support for individualistic explanations for poverty. The results suggested that Australians prefer traditional welfare‐style measures to alleviate poverty, compared to the other proposals examined here. Support for all proposals, however, was predicated on people's beliefs being consistent with those underlying the proposal. Those interested in implementing more radical solutions to address poverty need to emphasise the relations between the causes of poverty and the solutions to it in order to increase public support.