This article investigates an established proposition in the welfare literature, namely whether retrenchment is indeed unpopular among the citizenry. Additional to the hypothesis that retrenchment has a negative impact on general government popularity, this article presents a more refined hypothesis: retrenchment is influential only for those citizens highly interested in social policy. This study analyses government performance data derived from election studies (CSES data) in a multilevel design and tests the influence of actual retrenchment initiatives. The findings indicate that retrenchment is not generally unpopular; however, it has a negative impact on the opinions of those interested in the topic.