What Is More Important? Health or the Economy? - Data Debrief

Updated: Sep 26, 2020

The UK is facing two major challenges: Brexit, which rocked the country, and COVID-19, which rocked the world.

A data tracked by YouGov, last updated September 2020, shows us how divided Brits are.

Which of the following do you think are the most important issues facing the country at this time? Please tick up to three.

Brexit dominated public opinion last year (75%), news of the PM Boris Johnson’s ties with a US businesswoman dominated the headlines; but as the coronavirus news started to grow ever more present and so opinion changed.

By the 2nd of March, health was the public’s top priority (51%) and by the 23rd 75% of people said health should be the UK’s top priority.

On the 23rd, when the PM announced a nation-wide lockdown, concerns about the economy also grew.

Three months later, Health and the economy were pretty much intertwined and have claimed the top spot since.

It’s not hard to see why people are concerned for both. Lockdown decimated the economy; despite having recovered slightly, in June the economy was still 17.2% below February according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

Yet at the same time, not going into lockdown would have strained the NHS and increase the risk posed to those most at risk.

How about the US?

Which of these is the most important issue for you? Please note the following answer options were recoded: The environment > Climate change and the environment, Foreign policy > National security and foreign policy, The economy > Jobs and the economy, Taxes > Taxes and government spending

And the rest of the world?

These next polls don’t show what are the countries’ top priorities like we have seen with the UK and US data. However, they give us insight into what people from separate countries are feeling.

Using this data (referenced below) we can see that the economy and health, very often, go hand-in-hand. For instance, in Indonesia (which has seen 267K cases of COVID-19 (from 25th September 2020)), 83% of people fear for their personal health, 91% for the health of their friends and family, but most Indonesians (90%) also fear their personal finances will be severely affected and 80% fear they’ll lose their job.

In this example, we would not be able to really know whether health or economy would be prioritised. However, we can tell that opinion could be very divided.

In a, perhaps, more clear-cut example, only 27% of people believe their finances will be affected and 13% fear they’ll lose their jobs. All-the-while 30% fear for their personal health and 43% for friends and family.

This indicates Denmark (which as of the 25th September 2020 has 25,594 confirmed COVID-19 cases) could see health as the biggest issue at the moment, but it also tells us that, yet again, the issues go hand-in-hand.

As mentioned above, it’s not hard to see why people are concerned about both. This data is a testament to how COVID has shaken our priorities, but it makes the current news-cycle curious; in the sense that, even though most people are worried about both health and economy, we seem to be at a period where we are more politically divided than ever on the novel virus.

All the data referenced is below.

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