Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: The Impact of COVID-19 and Policy Responses on Australian Income
  Distribution and Poverty   This paper undertakes a near real-time analysis of the income distribution
effects of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia to understand the ongoing changes
in the income distribution as well as the impact of policy responses. By
semi-parametrically combining incomplete observed data from three different
sources, namely, the Monthly Longitudinal Labour Force Survey, the Survey of
Income and Housing and the administrative payroll data, we estimate the impact
of COVID-19 and the associated policy responses on the Australian income
distribution between February and June 2020, covering the immediate periods
before and after the initial outbreak. Our results suggest that despite the
growth in unemployment, the Gini of the equalised disposable income inequality
dropped by nearly 0.03 point since February. The reduction is because of the
additional wage subsidies and welfare supports offered as part of the policy
response, offsetting a potential surge in income inequality. Additionally, the
poverty rate, which could have been doubled in the absence of the government
response, also reduced by 3 to 4 percentage points. The result shows the
effectiveness of temporary policy measures in maintaining both the living
standards and the level of income inequality. However, the heavy reliance on
the support measures raises the possibility that the changes in the income
distribution may be reversed and even substantially worsened off should the
measures be withdrawn.

1
The categories of this paper are: cs
26
The categories of this paper are: bayes-an
14
The categories of this paper are: math-ph
28
The categories of this paper are: alg-geom
11
The categories of this paper are: hep-lat
33
The categories of this paper are: plasm-ph
23
The categories of this paper are: solv-int
0
The categories of this paper are: hep-ph
31
The categories of this paper are: ao-sci
27
The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
6
The categories of this paper are: astro-ph
12
The categories of this paper are: nucl-th
13
The categories of this paper are: quant-ph
37
The categories of this paper are: supr-con
10
The categories of this paper are: q-bio
5
The categories of this paper are: gr-qc