When public policy matters: public intervention and satisfaction with the government

This paper contributes to the economic voting literature by evaluating the effect of a policy-determined income shock on individual-level support for the government. It examines the results of a natural experiment relating to the 2016 Polish job market reform that raised the minimal hourly wage to PLN 12 per hour for all workers, regardless of their contract type, thus asymmetrically affecting low-earning individuals engaged in precarious work. The study employs a detailed microeconomic dataset from the European Social Survey to perform a difference-indifferences analysis. It concludes that the reform had a significant, positive impact on the levels of support received by the government, notably higher than any macroeconomic variable.