The COVID-19 virus, together with the ‘lockdowns’ instituted from March 2020 to prevent its spread, plunged the Australian economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The health and economic crisis and the government response will have a profound impact on household incomes and how they are distributed. While we lack the data to comprehensively assess this at present, this Supplement outlines what the available data tells us about the impacts on employment and incomes, who is most affected, and whether those impacts are offset by government income support policies.