The rEUsilience project under Horizon Europe (with COFACE as an integral partner), has recently published a study on eligibility and benefit adequacy for families in the tax-benefit system.
This paper critically analyses the tax-benefit systems of Belgium, Croatia, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, to assess their capacity to function as an automatic stabiliser and protect the income and reduce the risk of poverty for a range of different household and family types.
Automatic stabilisers are forms of income protection that sustain people’s livelihood and purchasing power in times of economic downturn. Particularly as unemployment goes up, automatic stabilisers such as unemployment benefits (and to a lesser extent social assistance) partially protect the individuals against income losses, thus keeping the demand for goods and services to ensure a quick economic recovery (Farnsworth & Irving, 2018). As such, automatic stabilisers serve a function that corresponds to the conceptualization of resilience, to provide well-being, or decent living conditions, despite adverse conditions
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