We examine the effects of a poorly performing welfare state on political solidarity, using an innovative “fat vignette” environment embedded in a virtual online state named Novaland. Participants are immersed in a virtual state context in which they experience different levels of state service quality — high, low and low + corrupt — through a series of vignettes. In between these vignettes, participants engage in everyday activities within the virtual state of Novaland, such as choosing between restaurants or park and adopting a dog or cat, allowing for a holistic immersion in the virtual state, higher attention and retention. We test pre-registered hypotheses of a social contract model between citizens and the welfare state. Our results show: (1) participants increased their willingness to pay for the welfare state when confronted with bad service delivery but significantly less so when confronted with a bad delivery in which they could bribe their way to a better service. (2) across different service experiences, participants showed lower levels of political trust for both low-quality and low-quality cum on-the-spot corruption experiences compared to high-quality experiences. This study underlines the crucial importance of effective social policies in maintaining political solidarity. In the post-COVID-19 period, many European states have struggled with a deterioration in service quality, making our findings particularly relevant. If welfare states cannot meet citizens expectations, this will lead to lower levels of political solidarity and trust.