Dr. Karina Doorley:

I would add that like other jobseeker supports, in respect of the pandemic unemployment payment and the employment wage subsidy, a decision was made to tax them. Ideally, that would have been done at the time, with the tax being deducted as it was paid, and people would not be surprised with a bill at the end of the year. In the work we have done, we examined the impact of the pandemic unemployment payment and the employment wage subsidy scheme on families’ incomes in light of the crisis. Even with taxation on top of it, we found these payments were significantly cushioning the lowest income groups who had suffered pandemic-related job loss. The bottom fifth of households in terms of income were still seeing their incomes up on average, completely cushioned, even taking into account the taxation on these payments. Administratively, the way the taxation was pushed to the end of the year is not ideal but as we move forward, it will be taken out at source or as we go along. Administratively, that is better from a household perspective.