Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/324341 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17943
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Economic crises produce rapid and sizable shifts in the demand for social support. Means-tested cash transfers, such as 'social assistance' programmes and related minimum-income benefits (MIB) typically function as benefits of last-resort, filling some of the support gaps left by other government transfers and are key pillars of strategies to alleviate hardship and prevent long-term damage from episodes spent in poverty. This paper discusses crisis-related challenges for MIB programmes, focussing on support for working-age individuals and their families, and drawing on the experience of OECD countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis. It compares MIB provisions before these crises, surveys countries' approaches and reforms in subsequent years, and distils lessons for making MIBs more effective, responsive and crisis ready.
Subjects: 
minimum-income benefits
social assistance
economic crisis
COVID-19
inflation
poverty
JEL: 
H53
H31
D31
I38
H12
E66
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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