We suggest that the effects of needs for security and certainty (NSC) on economic beliefs result from potentially competing dispositional (political engagement) and contextual (the country-level political narrative around the welfare state) influences. An analysis of data from the 2016 European Social Survey (N = 40,870) showed that at low levels of political engagement, NSC is associated with left-wing beliefs. However, at high levels of political engagement, the NSC effects are conditional on a country’s welfare state model: NSC is related to right-wing beliefs in Liberal, Continental, and Southern types, but the effects are non-significant in the Nordic type and the reverse under the Eastern type. Analysis of 2018 round of the same survey (N = 45,575) corroborated the main findings (except the Southern type for which NSC effects were non-significant). This study advances knowledge on the psychological roots of economic beliefs and contributes to understanding of people’s political choices.