More than ever, the poverty threshold is a cliff. The past year has been even more difficult for people in poverty, the latest poverty barometer shows. ‘A year ago, 400 grams of Gouda cheese cost 1.55 euros in Aldi. Now 2.90 euros.’
Pieter Gordts14 september 2023, 18:44
His house keys. Nico* took him to the non-profit organization Welzijns Schakel Ommekeer in Erpe-Mere. Welfare links are local associations that support people in poverty situations. The question he had been asked: which object had marked a turning point, for better or worse?
About eight years ago, Nico, his wife and two children – a third was added – were in danger of ending up on the street. “The stress associated with looking for a home and, above all, not finding one: terrible,” says Nico. The family spent the first six months of 2015 wandering around. Just when they were in danger of ending up on the street for the second time, they found a rental house through a social housing office.
Although there remained plenty of concerns. Nico’s wife has been at home with postpartum depression since 2015. “It then turned out that my wife’s father had incurred heavy debts in her name,” he says. Psychological help was too expensive. Even more so because Nico lost his job as a maintenance technician at Volvo Cars Ghent after an accident at work. Finding new work is still difficult to this day – even though Nico has a degree in industrial engineering. After the intervention of the debt mediator, the family of five now has to survive on 1,400 euros per month.
Nico is one of half a million Flemish people who live below the poverty threshold, accounting for 7.7 percent of the entire population. The good news is: this is less than last year (7.8 percent). In 2018 this was still 10.4 percent, although measurements have been done in a different way since 2019. “The decline this year is mainly due to the exceptional Covid measures, which provided households with additional financial support,” says Seppe Vanhex, coordinator of Decade Goals, which produces the poverty barometer, from which all the figures come.
Inflation
Until that’s the good news. Decade Goals estimates that another half a million Flemish people are flirting with that poverty line. Their profile has also changed. “There are now more and more people from the lower middle class and a striking number of young people among them,” says Vanhex.
In addition, poverty deepens for those below the threshold. This is evident from the relative median poverty gap: a difficult concept to explain how big the difference is between the median income (the middle income, not the average income, ed.) and the poverty threshold. That poverty gap rose from 15 percent in 2021 to 18 percent last year.
2022 was not an easy year due to the war in Ukraine and rising retail prices. “The prices for De Lijn, NMBS, drinking water, rent, etc. also increased,” says Vanhex. “That mainly had an impact on people in poverty, who have no buffer.”
For someone like Nico, who can quote the prices of white products down to the euro cent, that is a tragedy. “A year ago, 400 grams of Gouda cheese cost 1.55 euros in Aldi,” he says. “That is now 2.90 euros. Even in the cheapest stores, all sandwich fillings such as ham sausage or chicken fillet have risen sharply in price, from less than 1 euro to 1.50 euros. We’re not even talking about meat or fish, products that we simply can no longer buy. So we eat unhealthy food and the same thing over and over again, because that is the only thing we can afford.”
A social grocer, discounts against waste in the supermarket just before closing time and hours of comparing promos on the internet: that’s what Nico and his family have to rely on. “We used to be able to save fifty euros at the end of the month,” he says. “Now that doesn’t work. Sometimes we run out of money in the last week. And then we are lucky that we receive a social rate for electricity and gas.” Not for water, which means the family has to cough up 302 euros every three months.
Distress signals
Since the start of high inflation, Lieven De Pril, who works at the umbrella non-profit organization of Welzijnslinks, has been receiving helpless families more and more often. “They call on Friday evening and say: ‘It’s no longer possible. We won’t make it through the weekend,’” he says.
After that first contact, which is often forced to focus on urgent assistance such as clothing and food, a Welfare Link tries to maintain contact with a family in poverty. “Living in poverty is very difficult,” says De Pril. “You can’t make it without a network of family or volunteers.”
De Pril praises the poverty barometer, but fears that it is too optimistic. “We see no stagnation in the number of people below the poverty threshold. In Lede, where I live, the number of families we help increased this year from 100 to 130. In Erpe-Mere from 130 to 160. We will only see that reality in the figures next year.”
Decade goals require the various governments to take additional actions, such as the social energy tariff and the increase in social minimums, which have helped many people in poverty in recent years. “At the same time, we see a clear tendency in policy to culpable people in poverty and to blame themselves for their situation,” says chairman Anne Van Lancker. “Just look at the whole discussion about reserving childcare for people who work.”
*Nico is a pseudonym. Real name is known to the editors.
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2023-09-14 16:44:09
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