nonetheless this chapter s analysis offers new insights into how to provide adequate income support to unemployed persons without hindering their quick reintegration into employment this was true during the great recession despite the considerable responsiveness of firsttier unemployment benefit programmes to rising unemployment and the many crisisrelated measures that oecd countries took to reinforce these programmes this suggests that it would be timely to consider whether asset tests or other eligibility rules for these programmes are too strict for them to function effectively as a backstop to firsttier unemployment benefit programmes during an economic downturn