How Can You Think About Climate Change at a Time Like This? Understanding Climate Change Saliency Amidst Economic Hardship

This study draws on saliency theory to take a novel approach to investigating factors influencing climate change saliency. We use three pilot studies from ANES (2019, 2022, and 2024) to explore how the economic behavior among (a novel composite measure of financial hardship in the last year) age, education, political identity, and urban/rural residency shape climate attitudes. We find that cumulative economic hardships tend to lower the likelihood of climate change issue saliency. Political affiliation emerges as a significant predictor. However, when we utilize the interaction effect between education, urban residency, and partisanship, we find that as the level of self-reported economic hardships increases, Democrats are likely to deprioritize the climate issue saliency. The current research significantly contributes to saliency literature by elucidating the heterogeneous nature of climate change perceptions across socio-political demographics, offering profound insights into how economic and political contexts influence the prioritization of climate issues.