The economic and financial crisis in Portugal and Spain has caused both a decrease in trust in political institutions and cuts in welfare spending in both countries, as well as perceptions that the Welfare State was under siege. In this chapter, we assess the relationship between welfare perceptions and political trust in both countries, expecting different impacts of those perceptions amongst the Portuguese and the Spaniards and according to the timing of the sovereign debt crisis. Also, we expect those impacts to be weaker for citizens with stronger levers of cognitive mobilization. Results showed that perceptions of welfare performance are a strong predictor of political trust, and that its impact is stronger in Spain than in Portugal. However, the impact of welfare performance perceptions is weaker in 2012, at the peak of the crisis, than in 2008 or 2014. Also, cognitive mobilization leads to a stronger impact of these perceptions, particularly in Spain.

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