Understanding the Nation: Election story Part 2
27th June 2024
Walnut Unlimited
Understanding the Nation: Election story Part 2
For the last couple of years, Walnut Unlimited has been tracking six segments of the population based on their economic situation.
Economic situation has a clear, significant impact on the day-to-day life of an individual. Whilst UK inflation rates have dropped – meaning the cost of things isn’t rising as quickly as it was than, say, a year ago – prices are still high for the majority. Over time this feeling of being squeezed and worry about our bank balances can have a long-term impact on how we feel, think and behave.
Will the economy impact the way that people vote?
Overall, half state their current financial situation is important to them when deciding which party they will vote for at the coming election.
This rises to two thirds of those who are ‘heavily impacted’ by the cost of living crisis compared with just over a third of those who are ‘better than okay’. Those in the Heavily Impacted segment are more likely to be 35-54, female and in lower socio economic groups whereas the Better than Okay segment skew heavily to the 55+.
Amongst the third of the Heavily Impacted segment who didn’t say their financial situations was important to their vote, only 8% actively said it wasn’t important, the majority were uncertain or just didn’t know.
A snapshot of the Heavily Impacted segment
And it’s not just that their current financial position is going to impact their voting behaviours, their bank balances in the future will also impact how they vote.
Half of the Heavily Impacted segment state that the cost of living will be the most important thing to them when deciding which political party they will vote for.
But this is a group of people who are feeling unsure about the state of the economy. When asked about their feelings around the future of the UK economy, a third (36%) feel it’s going to get worse, 2 in 10 believe it will stay the same (17%) and 1in 10 don’t know (12%).
3 in 10 believe it will be dependent on which political party is in power after the election, so this should act as a call to action for this audience to vote.
However as we’ve seen across the public, but particularly strongly amongst this segment, the overarching feelings around the general election are negative. They feel uncertain, worried and stressed which can often lead to apathy.
Engaging this audience and speaking directly to their needs in the last stage of the election could be integral to motivating them. The segment accounts for 2 in 10 of the population and could have significant sway in the outcome of the general election.
Interested in reading one of our Understanding the Nation reports? Or would you like to add your own questions to our tracker? Get in touch with the team today wal_utn@walnutunlimited.com
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