The impacts of the government’s coronavirus income support schemes across different age groups

Drawing on new Resolution Foundation research, Karl Handscomb explains that each of the three policies introduced to directly protect household incomes during the pandemic has been targeted at different age groups. These patterns reflect a mixture of ingrained generational differences in the UK’s labour market pre-COVID, the nature of the initial shock to economic activity, and the design of the social security system. They also give an indication to who might be financially at risk when the schemes come to an end.