The Central Planning Bureau (CPB) expects “lean economic growth” up to and including 2024. That reports the CPB on Thursday in its so-called August estimate, an annual macroeconomic outlook. The recession that officially started on Wednesday is therefore not expected to continue. According to the CPB, a major point of attention for the Dutch government should be the increasing poverty.
In recent years, low-income households have been helped with their high energy bills, but those temporary measures will expire after this year. If no new measures are taken, according to estimates, 5.7 percent of the population will live in poverty in 2024, compared to 4.8 percent this year. That is almost a million Dutch people. The percentage of children living in poverty will then rise from 6.2 to 7 percent.
The now outgoing cabinet has in April already announced that it “wants to be able to help vulnerable households in a targeted manner next year, if high energy prices or inflation require this”. Whether the government considers these measures necessary will be decided, among other things, on the basis of the estimate published by the CPB on Thursday. The announcement of such measures would then follow on September 19, with Prinsjesdag.
But the CPB also warns of rising government deficits. After announcing his departure in July, outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) said about where the money for measures should come from: “I don’t know exactly how and where you get that from, but you have to [het achterblijven van lage inkomens] fix it.”
Read also Poverty in the Netherlands: a lot of good intentions, but little knowledge