[séminaire CREM] "Covid-19 private pension withdrawals and unemployment tenures"

Présentation de Robert Breunig (Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University)

CREM - LG

Co-écrit avec Tristram Sainsbury et Tim Watson.

Robert Breunig est accueilli à la Faculté des Sciences Économiques jusqu'au 13 mai.

Abstract:
This is the first study to evaluate the labour market effects of early pension withdrawal policies in the COVID-19 context. We use 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. We estimate that receiving a lump sum of up to A$10,000 from superannuation accounts at the most acute phase of the pandemic, between April and June 2020, resulted in a 32 per cent lower exit rate from the unemployment system inside the first six months of unemployment spell, and 14 per cent inside a year of spell. Receiving a lump sum during the second window of opportunity – mostly in July and August 2020 and as a labour market recovery was underway – resulted in a 34 per cent lower exit from the unemployment system inside the first nine months of unemployment spell, and 14 per cent inside fifteen months of spell. The job-seeking deterrence is ultimately temporary but it took close to eighteen months for estimated convergence between withdrawers and those that didn’t withdraw. 162,000 withdrawers with completed spells on average spent an additional 7 weeks on unemployment payments, translating to 8 million additional days on unemployment benefits, and around A$580 million in additional pandemic fiscal expenditure. Pension withdrawals should not be considered an ‘off government balance sheet’ crisis support measure in the short (or longer) term.

séminaire, recherche, économie

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