When do salient social issues affect the generosity of welfare programmes?

Abstract This article asks whether salient social issues affect the generosity of welfare programmes. It argues that governments adjust the social policy generosity when related issues become more salient. However, this only occurs under two conditions: when the broader public is in favour of more government spending, and only for welfare policies that favour large groups of beneficiaries (e.g. pensions, healthcare, and education) but not for smaller programmes (e.g. unemployment). Drawing on a dataset of 14 Western European countries between 2002 and 2018, findings largely confirm these expectations. I find no evidence of government responsiveness in unemployment compensation. Pensions and healthcare show responsiveness only when the public favours more spending. For education, I find symmetric effects: governments respond to important education issues by mirroring citizen preferences. These results contribute to the welfare state literature by introducing a generalizable framework that links public opinion and welfare generosity across different policies.