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Economic insecurity is commonly held to be the key psychological mechanism underpinning the relationship between rapid economic change and the size of welfare states, Transformations like deindustrialization and globalization are held to create winners and losers, and the latter demand greater governmental protection against the forces undermining their economic insecurity. This individual-level relationship has been assumed rather than specified and tested. Economic insecurity can take more than one form, Moreover, its different forms vary not only in their socioeconomic roots, but also in their relationship to support for enhanced social protection. A comparison of the United States and Australia highlights the variability of economic insecurity's impact of welfare preferences and the need to unpack the complexity of their relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]