Presenter: Tristram Sainsbury

Date & time: Friday 29 April 2022, 11am to 12pm (AEST)

Mode: Hybrid

The paper uses a novel set of linked whole-of-population administrative records to examine more than half-a-million Australians who found themselves newly unemployed in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study estimates that receiving a lump sum of up to A$10,000 from superannuation accounts between April and June 2020 resulted in a 77 per cent lower rate of exit from the unemployment system inside the first quarter of unemployment spells, 32 per cent inside 6 months and 14 per cent inside a year. The job-seeking deterrence is temporary but it took close to eighteen months for a convergence between withdrawers and those that didn’t withdraw. Withdrawals are not ‘off public balance sheet’ stimulus in the short (or longer) term.

Registration and further information available here.

Comments are closed.