This paper analyses eligibility criteria in der realms of public and social assistance programs under targeting benefits governance to enable third-country immigrants work protection and poverty reduction in Austria, Finland, and the Czech Republic's COVID-19 era. Existing research pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic social disorder that confronts policymakers under intense budgetary pressure and increasing out-of-work population to shift on assisting the unemployed from universal to selective targeting benefits that stress public resources distribution on a measure of financial need to the poor instead of unlimited transfer to the entire population as social rights.