This evaluation provides evidence about the outcomes of the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) in the first three trial areas in which it was rolled out. The purpose of this evaluation was to create a new, integrated evidence base and use it to assess the impact...

Many Australians receive very little protection from income risk due to unemployment. A significant portion of people live paycheck-to-paycheck. This discussion paper outlines a new proposal to better support Australians experiencing unemployment.

This paper focuses on income support and its impact on work incentives for persons with disability. More specifically, it looks at key issues and policy choices that arise when designing such income support programmes.

This analysis of administrative social security data aimed to gain a clearer understanding of income volatility in Australia. The focus is on unemployed and underemployed Australians who received Newstart Allowance — a group of individuals highly exposed to the risks of financial insecurity.

This report is the second part of the research being conducted by the ACOSS and UNSW Poverty and Inequality in Australia Partnership. The research uses the latest available data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (for 2017-18), and digs deeper into understanding who stands where...

This paper proposes is a complete reconfiguration of Australia's social security system - a reconfiguration that brings together an integrated policy framework with elements that would constitute a social guarantee in the face of the threats to social and economic security that have come to...

Most single working-age adults in Canada on social assistance are living in deep poverty, due to provincial governments’ efforts to curb welfare dependency and maintain work incentives. In this paper, the author calls on provincial policy-makers to increase social assistance benefits for singles to help...

The present paper addresses the question of how to estimate a social welfare function defined over inflation and unemployment that can help inform the policy decisions of central banks by providing a way to measure the well-being costs arising from macroeconomic fluctuations.

In response to the sharp fall in economic activity in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Australian government announced a series of measures to support incomes and employment. The largest was the JobKeeper payment - a wage subsidy to help keep employees and...

The Morrison Government’s decision to reduce the rate of JobSeeker by $150 from January 2021 will push an additional 190,000 Australians below the poverty line—including 50,000 children—and have a devastating impact on low income families, argues this paper.