7 in 10 Britons believe policies of the UK government have contributed to rising cost of living

Ahead of tomorrow’s ONS inflation rate figures, Ipsos, one of the world's leading market research companies, releases a 32-country study, the Ipsos Cost of Living Monitor, looking at how people are doing financially and their expectations for the future

Key UK findings include

• Six in ten (61%) Britons believe that it will be at least a year before inflation returns to normal, if ever. 
• 73% believe that the policies of the UK government have contributed to the rising cost of living. 
• 40% think the rate of inflation will rise in the next year, while 27% think it will fall.
• 35% think their mortgage or rent will increase in the next six months.
• 35% expect interest rates to rise in the next year, while 28% think they will fall.
• A third of people (33%) expect their disposable income to fall over the next year, rather than rise (22%).
• 69% think the cost of food shopping will increase in the next six months, and 59% think the cost of utilities will increase in the next six months.
• 39% of Britons believe that the cost of living crisis in the UK has been worse than in other countries.

Key global findings include

• In 29 of the 32 countries surveyed a majority think it will take more than a year for inflation to return to normal or that rising prices will never return to normal. A growing number in France, Belgium and the Netherlands share this cautious outlook. 
• Since we started the Ipsos Cost of Living Monitor in 2022, the number of people finding it financially difficult has changed little (29% in June 2022, 26% in April 2024). The macro-economic realities may be evolving, but the US, Canada, Australia and Italy still have as many saying they are struggling as they did two years ago. There are some countries, in particular in Northern Europe, where the proportion saying they are financially comfortable is rising. 
• While the “Global Economy” is seen as the biggest driver of rising prices in a country, (70%), 68% blame the policies of their government. In this issue, 20 countries have seen an increase in the proportion saying their government is making inflation worse compared to November 2023.
• Fewer people think the rate of inflation is set to rise in their country. Fifty-eight per cent think inflation will continue to increase over the next year, 17pp lower than June 2022. 
• In addition, 48% think interest rates will rise over the next year, down from 58% last autumn and 64% back in June 2022. Twelve countries have seen a double-digit decline on this measure since November 2023.
• Looking ahead, 29% think they will have less money to spend in the next year, while 30% think their disposable income will rise. While these figures do mark an improvement to the pessimism people felt when this survey series started in 2022, it has changed little in the last 12 months.

Download the report

Speaking about the findings, Ipsos Senior Director of UK Politics Gideon Skinner, said:

Although the Conservative party is keen to stress recent improvements in the economic climate, our Cost of Living Monitor reveals that a significant majority of Britons still believe that the UK government's policies have contributed to the cost of living crisis – as many who blame the general state of the global economy. And even though expectations of further rises in the rate of inflation have halved compared to two years ago, 61% of Britons believe that it will be at least a year before inflation returns to normal, if ever - demonstrating that improving economic data is not cutting through when the public are still feeling the impact on the cost of their daily bills.

Technical note

Ipsos interviewed 24,801 people online in the following countries between March 22 and April 5, 2024. Quotas were set to ensure representativeness and data have been weighted to the known population profile of each country. The sample consists of approximately 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mainland China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and the U.S., and 500 individuals each in Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, and Türkiye. The sample in India consists of approximately 2,200 individuals, of whom approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 were interviewed online.