Those who work must earn at least 500 euros more than those who do not work. That is one of the proposals with which Open VLD attracts its supporters at its conference in May. The party wants, among other things, to put a brake on the increase in benefits and advocates expanding the job bonus.
‘The difference between working and not working should be greater. That’s what pretty much everyone says. But if you look at the actual figures, you have to conclude that there is still a long way to go,’ says Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne, who, together with Flemish Member of Parliament Maurits Vande Reyde, will be leading the Open VLD congress next month. The party makes a number of proposals to eventually bring the difference between working and not working to 500 euros net per month.
One of the proposals that Van Quickenborne and Vande Reyde are launching for this is to freeze the increase in benefits. Until that difference is reached. After that, benefits are allowed to rise again, but never faster than the wages of those who work.
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The liberals also want to combine various social benefits for those who do not work into one social amount, which is linked to work willingness and limited in time. Consider, for example, social benefits for energy, internet, housing and public transport. People who receive this amount can decide for themselves how to spend it.
Expand job bonus
Finally, in order to put a Flemish turbo on top of those federal reforms, the liberals also advocate broadening and deepening the Flemish job bonus. This job bonus, which is intended for Flemish people who work and earn no more than 2,500 euros gross per month, can now increase to an annual premium of 600 euros, or 50 euros per month. According to Open VLD, there is still room to strengthen that. For example, they want to extend the job bonus to everyone who works, including the self-employed, and they advocate tripling the amount. This means that working people could receive up to 1,800 euros in tax credit per year, or an extra 150 euros per month net.
“Today people are openly testifying about how it is more beneficial for them not to work and to live at the expense of those who do. I don’t say that right at all. But we need to drastically reform the system to ban that mentality,’ says Vande Reyde. ‘Where other parties make one proposal after another to discourage work even more and to reward non-work, we want to change the tanker’s course.’
