The rise of in-work benefits: policy, politics and evaluation

In-work benefits (IWBs) are cash transfers or tax instruments used by governments to distribute resources to households undertaking paid work. As a relatively new area of labour market policy, governments typically use IWBs to alleviate in-work poverty and increase work incentives as part of a drive to ‘make work pay’. This chapter provides an overview of the emergence and key features of in-work benefits. We start by defining IWBs and outlining their unique characteristics. We then provide an overview of cross-national variation in IWBs, review evaluative and explanatory literature, and suggest further avenues of research.