PONE-D-22-32871Increases in income-support payments reduce the demand for charityPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ablaza,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Please consider the suggestions of the reviewers while revising your paper especially in:

1. Literature review is weak.

2. problem statement is vague.

3. methodological explanations are required.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: the paper objective is to investigate if support payments are associated with reductions in charity demand

- the authors need to provide literature review on the topic

- the amount of government support, is it coined with the level of charity, are those who get charity eligible for government support

- what are the characteristics of the sample? is the charity sample the same as the sample that gets government support?

- the authors used count data for the dependent variable and did not use Poisson regression, would this model improve their results? is the frequency for government support increased? is the quantity of support meets the minimum needs of the poor in terms of poverty line?

Reviewer #2: I would like to appreciate the authors for their kind effort to conduct this study entitled “ Increases in income-support payments reduce the demand for charity”. It is an interesting topic which may contribute majorly toward the country’s welfare policy development. The current version has some flaws and in regard of this I have suggested some improvements.

Title: Title is so simple it can be improved based on the study.

Abstract: Authors should incorporate the methodology in abstract

Keywords: Instead of COVID-19 and Administrative data, there should be more suitable keywords. Authors should replace them.

Introduction:

A clear research problem statement is missing.

Line 107-113: I think in this one paragraph authors have successfully completed their research, as they mentioned the methodology and their findings. If it is, then what does remaining pages present? Authors should consider this, and they should provide their research questions, hypothesis.

Author should also discuss the side-effects of unemployment benefits on the country’s economy, briefly explain sustainability of this system. Is it a attractive policy in term of unemployment?

S3: first economic support payment was delivered from 31 March 2020, followed by Coronavirus supplements, authors should mention the time period for which this support was provided? When it is ended or still it is ongoing.

Line 183-199. Authors should explain why only these two organisations were selected and what was their selection criteria? Their size, their number of personals etc. Moreover, in the text authors mentioned moths but in figure (S4) and (S5) authors used number of weeks, it would be better to use same. I suggest to use months also in figure. Similarly, the information about the average amount these two organisations are providing should be provided. Similarly, how many Australians were supported by them per year or month before and during and after the severe impacts of Pandemic e.g. in new normal.

Figure 1: in each year, the charity is on its peak in month of November as compare to the other months even though during pandemic. Author should explain why does this trend exist? And why the charity has been reduced in March 2020 and similarly in November 2020 it turned to up???

Line 267-272: eligible and ineligible persons for ESP and Coronavirus Supplement; did a person receive both types of support and charity from any of two organisations? If no, then why they not received because during the pandemic each and every person seemed like a deserving person? Kindly elaborate briefly.

Methodology section is at the end, it should be before the Result section.

Conclusion is missing

Policy implications should be incorporated.

The limitations of the study, and future scope of the study should be incorporated.

Best of Luck

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Increases in income-support payments reduce the demand for charity: A difference-in-difference analysis of charitable-assistance data from Australia over the COVID-19 pandemic

PONE-D-22-32871R1

Dear Dr. Ablaza,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Muhammad Khalid Bashir, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: the authors have all comments addressed and the paper,

that paper has improved and is suitable for publication

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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