Sep 17, 2023 at 5:04 am
People with an average income are increasingly in trouble. Due to high energy prices and more expensive groceries, they can hardly make ends meet. Meanwhile, wages are lagging behind. Many middle-income earners are therefore forced to adjust their spending patterns.
The NVVK, the trade association for debt assistance, helps twenty thousand people every year to make a settlement. This includes small entrepreneurs and private individuals with an average income. According to the Central Planning Bureau (CPB), this has been set at an average of 41,500 euros for this year.
“The number of people with an income in the average or above-average category who come to ask for help has increased significantly last year. These are worrying developments,” says a spokesperson. Of the total number of applications, 43 percent come from average or above-average incomes. Two years ago that share was still 33 percent.
The purchasing power of many people has been under pressure for a long time due to increased prices. The CPB predicts that the purchasing power of all households will decrease by 1.1 percent this year.
Nibud is therefore sounding the alarm. “People with a middle income who could make ends meet reasonably well until recently are increasingly unable to make ends meet without cutting back or using their savings. We still see this from the responses we receive,” says a spokesperson. The organization calls on middle-income earners to carefully examine their income and expenditure.
‘Many people are having a hard time’
According to Anna Custers, professor of Poverty Interventions at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the main question is how sustainable and shock-resistant the budgets of middle-income households are. “It mainly concerns households with small buffers. They indicate that they can just about make ends meet at the end of the month. It is not yet the case that they end up in debt or need some other form of help. But many people have difficult.”
Trade union De Unie, which mainly represents employees with an average and above-average income, notes that this group is increasingly burdened. “The outgoing cabinet is allocating 2 billion euros to combat poverty, but this is financed with taxpayers’ money. In other words, middle incomes pay for this,” says chairman Reinier Castelein.
‘In many cases no holiday, school trip or eating out’
The FNV notes that a third of workers have difficulty making ends meet. “The disposable income of middle incomes is declining and this means that they are forced to adjust their spending patterns,” says Vice-President Zakaria Boufangacha. “In many cases there is no money left for a holiday, a school trip or an evening out for dinner.”
In the new collective labor agreement season, the union will do everything it can to repair and improve the incomes of minimum and middle groups. “This means that the minimum wage must be increased to 16 euros. We are also going for automatic price compensation and we will stick to that for the long term,” says Boufangacha.
Traditionally, the FNV announces the wage requirement on the day before Budget Day. This year, Budget Day falls on September 19.
2023-09-17 03:04:58
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