Practising Resilience: Lived Experience, Agency and Responses to the Cost‐of‐Living Crisis

Abstract

The cost of living in the United Kingdom has risen to unprecedented levels, leaving people experiencing intensifying hardship. However, there is a tension between the ways in which the cost‐of‐living crisis has been framed in public discourse and the experiences of the public, who focus less on coping with short‐term shocks and more on the erosion of personal resilience over the long term. To explore how resilience has been practised during the crisis and the types of policy change people want to see, this article draws on findings from a mixed‐methods study, taking in a longitudinal survey fielded in Britain in 2022–2023, alongside findings from deliberative workshops and peer research conducted in three London boroughs. Our contribution is both theoretical, connecting lived experience to the existing literature on resilience, and empirical, through the application of novel methods to policy responses to hardship. Using Item Response Theory, supported by insights from peer research and deliberative workshops, we identify the differential nature of the strategies people are taking to cope with rising costs. We then consider the types of policy changes people would like to see, finding far greater appetite for long‐term, ambitious systemic reform to rebuild resilience, not short‐term measures to weather the peaks of inflation. Our findings suggest a distrust in those with the power to enact change as well as stigma around accessing support, while also highlighting the need for engaging the most vulnerable in the process.