Working paper: The buffering effect of the Austrian tax-benefit system on child poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic

DATE

04/03/2025

This EUROMOD Working Paper was written within a project on child poverty in Austria and analyses the effect of COVID-19 on household income, the at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rate for children in Austria, and the buffering effect of the Austrian tax-benefit system. The authors find that automatic stabilisers and discretionary policy measures protected households with children from significant market income shocks, preventing an increase in child poverty between 2019 and 2020. However, comparing 2019 and 2021, the tax-benefit system was less successful in protecting lower-income families, resulting in an increase in the child AROP rate.