This chapter draws on a longer document, available as Immervoll and Richardson (2011). How did policy and economic changes, such as patterns of unemployment, low-wage work and working time, combine to change the redistributive role of the welfare state prior to the onset of the global recession? Did redistribution decline overall, or did the changes mainly affect the type of redistribution taking place, without eroding the overall capacity for reducing inequality? This chapter seeks to answer those questions.