This is a cross-national study of the impact of the Great Recession (GR) on the distribution of household incomes. Looking at real income levels, poverty rates, and income inequality, the book focuses on the period 2007–9, but also considers longer term impacts. Three contributions are made. First, the book reviews lessons from the past about the relationships between macroeconomic change and the household income distribution. Second, it considers the experience of 21 rich OECD member countries drawing on a mixture of national accounts, labour force, and household survey data. Third, the book presents case-study evidence for six countries: Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. It is shown that there were marked divergences across countries in the GR’s nature, impact on the labour market, and its fiscal consequences and yet, for most of the countries studied, there was little change in household income distributions in the two years following the GR. Between 2007 and 2009, households were protected from the impact of the downturn by additional support from governments through the tax and benefit system. Although employment fell in many countries, their household income distributions did not change much. After 2009, there is likely to be much greater change in incomes as a result of the fiscal consolidation measures that are being put into place to address the structural deficits that accompanied the GR. The book’s main policy lesson is that stabilization of the household income distribution in the face of macroeconomic turbulence is an achievable policy goal, at least in the short-term.