  The objective of this paper is to estimate the expected effects of the
pandemic of Covid-19 for child poverty in North Macedonia. We rely on MK-MOD
Tax & Benefit Microsimulation Model for North Macedonia based on the Survey on
Income and Living Conditions 2019. The simulation takes into account the
development of income, as per the observed developments in the first three
quarters of 2020, derived from the Labor Force Survey, which incorporates the
raw effect of the pandemic and the government response. In North Macedonia,
almost no government measure directly aimed the income of children, however,
three key and largest measures addressed household income: the wage subsidy of
14.500 MKD per worker in the hardest hit companies, relaxation of the criteria
for obtaining the guaranteed minimum income, and one-off support to vulnerable
groups of the population in two occasions. Results suggest that the relative
child poverty rate is estimated to increase from 27.8 percent before the
pandemic to 32.4 percent during the pandemic. This increase puts additional
19,000 children below the relative poverty threshold. Results further suggest
that absolute poverty is likely to reduce primarily because of the automatic
stabilizers in the case of social assistance and because of the one-time cash
assistance.
