Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
June 9, 2026
Summary:
How does immigration affect support for redistribution? While most research focuses on overall tax and spending levels, we investigate how immigration influences preferences conditional on tax structures. Using two original survey experiments in the UK, we find that low- and middle-income respondents are more likely to support redistribution to immigrants under progressive systems shielding them from fiscal costs, but oppose redistribution when immigrants are identified as beneficiaries and the tax structure increases their fiscal burden. In contrast, high-income respondents' preferences are largely unaffected by either tax structure or immigrant inclusion. These findings suggest that progressive taxation (1) is a viable revenue-generating strategy without provoking major political backlash; (2) reduces native resistance to immigrant welfare inclusion; (3) helps explain puzzling variation in immigration's effects on welfare attitudes; and (4) clarifies why low- and middle-income groups sometimes reject generous welfare programs despite standing to benefit. Our results highlight the importance of institutional design in shaping how economic self-interest and immigration concerns interact.
Published in
Journal of European Public Policy
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2026.2685818
ISSN
13501763
Subjects
Notes
Online Early
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Open Access
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow theposting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent
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