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The paper uses a novel set of linked whole-of-population administrative records to examine more than half-a-million Australians who found themselves newly unemployed in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study estimates that receiving a lump sum of up to A$10,000 from superannuation accounts between April and June 2020 resulted in a 77 per cent lower rate of exit from the unemployment system inside the first quarter of unemployment spells, 32 per cent inside 6 months and 14 per cent inside a year. The job-seeking deterrence is temporary but it took close to eighteen months for a convergence between withdrawers and those that didn’t withdraw. Withdrawals are not ‘off public balance sheet’ stimulus in the short (or longer) term.