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NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 07:26
Sjoerd Mouissie
Datajournalist
Bas de Vries
Research Editor
Sjoerd Mouissie
Datajournalist
Bas de Vries
Research Editor
“The social security of the population and the spread of prosperity are the objects of government concern.” Pieter Omtzigt quoted article 20 this week the Constitution at the presentation of the NSC election programme. It is typical of the major role that social security and (especially) poverty play in the run-up to the House of Representatives elections. And this time not only with parties that have traditionally been strongly committed to this subject, such as the SP.
To better understand how the less prosperous Netherlands is doing, we explain the topic of ‘social security’ in five questions and a series of accompanying graphs.
The Netherlands is a country with relatively small income differences, right?
Compared to most other European countries, this is indeed the case. Partly because Dutch cabinets (via the well-known ‘purchasing power cards’) keep adding extra money when groups are in danger of falling into negative territory. The Netherlands is therefore almost at the bottom of the ranking of the most unequal countries, together with the other Northern European countries.
NOS/Sjoerd MouissieCompared to other European countries, income inequality in the Netherlands is small.
You also see this relative evenness when you break down Dutch incomes. Nine out of ten households in the Netherlands earn less than 84,000 euros. There is a fairly small group that exceeds 140,000 per year. The fact that this often involves entrepreneurs is evident from the large ‘profit’ component in their incomes.
NOS/Sjoerd Mouissie
Differences in disposable income are relatively small
NOS/Sjoerd Mouissie
Graph showing the different types of income and the number of households
Why is it that there are now more and more millionaires and even billionaires?
Where the differences really start to matter in the Netherlands is with regard to assets. This concerns assets such as homes, land, shares and ‘significant interests’ in companies. There you see that the top 10 percent of the Netherlands owns almost 60 percent of the wealth and the top 1 percent even a quarter.
According to business magazine Quote there were 47 billionaires within our borders last year. While the bottom 10 percent of Dutch households actually have more debts than assets.
NOS/Sjoerd MouissieInequality in wealth, unlike income, is large.
How many people in the bottom group actually live in poverty?
About 800,000, estimated an advisory committee earlier this year, including about 200,000 children. According to the committee, the chronic stress that people experience as a result results in health problems, relationship problems, but also in less action and perseverance. Poor children live unhealthier lives, therefore learn less and have less chance of a good future.
Poverty generally moves with the economy: for example, there was an increase in the aftermath of the 2008/2009 recession, and then a decrease again from 2014 onwards. It is striking that poverty has not increased noticeably in recent years in times of sharply rising prices. According to the Central Planning Bureau (CPB), this can be traced back to the government’s billion-dollar measures, such as the energy surcharge.
Single-parent families (usually mothers) and single people up to the age of 65 are poorer than average. Nevertheless, there are also more than 150,000 households that have paid work as their main source of income, the so-called working poor. These are largely self-employed.
But according to the advisory committee, you run the greatest risk of living in poverty if you are on social assistance. This applies to almost all household types, which are structurally deprived.
NOS/Sjoerd Mouissie Those who have to live on social assistance are short of (a lot of) money every month.
What can be done about poverty?
Municipalities everywhere in the country are currently taking all kinds of measures, in addition to social assistance and all national (tax) allowances that households can receive. There are areas in the Netherlands that have much more poverty than others.
NOS/Sjoerd MouissieThe risk of poverty is greatest in the cities and in the north of the Netherlands
To close all income gaps, a municipality such as Zwijndrecht, for example, makes 75 euros of clothing allowance available per child and in Capelle aan den IJssel, AOW pensioners can travel for free on public transport. Responsible councilors do not actually consider this type of income support to be their job at all: in their view, the government should simply ensure that benefits are high enough to live on.
The advice of the aforementioned committee followed the same line of thought: structurally increase social assistance, the minimum wage and possibly also the housing allowance. In addition, child benefit and the child-related budget must also be increased, especially the contributions for older children. All this comes with a hefty price tag: 6 to 7 billion euros.
In addition, according to the committee, the social security system must become clearer and simpler, so that more schemes reach the target group. Nowadays, many people simply do not know that certain schemes exist or they no longer dare to use them since the benefits scandal, afraid that they will have to pay back the money later.
Do we actually know to what extent people in poverty also vote in elections?
If there’s one thing that’s hard to measure, it’s that. After all: non-voters rarely participate in opinion research. But research by the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP) earlier this year showed a clear correlation: the lower the income, the greater the chance that someone will not vote. Confidence in politics is too low for that.
NOS/Sjoerd MouissiePeople with a low income vote less
2023-10-28 05:26:50
#increasingly #social #security #situation #Netherlands
