Abstract
Increasing income inequality has raised concerns about social cohesion, yet the subjective dimension of inequality and its relationship to trust remain underexplored. This article examines links between attitudes toward income inequality and generalised and institutional trust in Poland, a post-socialist state characterised by strong anti-inequality sentiment and low trust. Using data from the 5th wave of the European Values Study (N = 1,352), we employ an economic stratification framework with five income classes, complemented by non-parametric tests and logistic regression. The results show that acceptance of inequality increases with income, with the sharpest contrasts between low- and high-income classes, while middle strata remain relatively homogeneous. Generalised trust rises with income, whereas institutional trust follows more complex, non-linear patterns. Crucially, the links between trust and inequality attitudes are class-specific: generalised trust in strangers legitimises inequality overall, while generalised trust in relatives has divergent effects across lower- and upper-middle-income groups.