To what extent do priors about tax wedges, unemployment benefits and labour market outcomes apply to the new members of the EU? Principal Component Analysis (PCA) suggests the new members share similar characteristics to each other and should be grouped separately from the rest of Europe. There are statistically significant differences in the medians of unemployment benefits and the labour market outcomes of the less productive, but insignificant differences in prime-age outcomes and tax wedges. Within the new members, our non-parametric analysis finds tax wedges and the duration of benefits (not the replacement ratio) are associated with poor labour market outcomes, but the evidence is weak.