large and persistent losses of lowincome groups following recessions underline the importance of welltargeted incomesupport policies during economic slumps as well as during the recovery in restoring incomes at the bottom a key challenge for policy is to facilitate and encourage employment and earnings growth that benefits lowincome groups in particular the relative stability of higher incomes after recessions as well as their longerterm trends are important to bear in mind in policy debates that seek to define a response to growing inequalities