makingworkpay policies have two main goals raising employment and limiting inwork poverty empirical evidence tends to show that the positive effects on headcount employment outweigh the costs associated with reduced incentives to work more hours immervoll and pearson evaluations have mainly concerned periods of buoyant labour demand which raises the question of how effective these policies are in an economic downturn when wages need to adjust downwards if additional jobs are to be forthcoming even so an eitc can still be effective as a tool to reduce inwork poverty in times of crisis