News item | 6/30/2023 | 4:08 pm
This is a press release from the Social Minimum Committee
Without additional measures, people living on the social minimum will be short of money in the coming years. To prevent this, the Commission recommends the social minimum in its first report ‘A certain existence. Towards a future-proof system of the social minimum: increases in the minimum wage, social assistance benefits and possibly also rent allowance. In order to combat poverty among children, the child benefit or the child-related budget must be significantly increased. The report was presented this afternoon to Minister Carola Schouten for Poverty Policy.
“The research shows that if nothing changes, people with a low income will be short of hundreds of euros per month in the coming years. And that despite the money that the cabinet already set aside in 2022 to help households,” said chairman Godfried Engbersen on behalf of the Social Minimum Committee. The Commission therefore calls for these shortcomings to be resolved as quickly as possible.
The social minimum is the minimum amount that someone needs to live on. That amount must be enough to pay the costs for rent, water, energy and care, to do the shopping, to have a mobile phone and internet, to transfer the monthly costs for care, gas, water and light and to occasionally to cope with a financial setback. In addition, the social minimum must be sufficient to be able to participate in a social context.
How many households will be short depends on their composition and where they live. In a realistic scenario, single people and couples without children will be short of almost 100 to 200 euros per month. A couple with one or more children may face a shortfall of approximately 200 to almost 500 euros per month. The picture varies among single parents with one or more children, some households are short, others are not.
The consequences of these rising deficits are far-reaching, according to the Commission. It affects people not only financially, but also mentally. Living with the constant stress of a lack of money is at the expense of people’s physical and mental health, as well as their self-esteem. The risk of loneliness increases and makes it more difficult to handle money well. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get out of poverty on your own. Children growing up in poverty live less healthily, learn less as a result and have less chance of a good future.
“The fact that so many people live in poverty also costs society a lot,” says Engbersen on behalf of the Commission. “People rely more often on care, are involved in expensive debt restructuring processes and are therefore unable to contribute sufficiently to society. And that is quite apart from all those professionals in social security and education who try to recover from the consequences of financial insecurity.”
In order to solve the short-term shortages in households, the Commission proposes to increase the minimum wage and social assistance, and possibly also the rent allowance. In addition, the child benefit or the child-related budget must also be increased, in particular the amounts for older children. To solve shortages, about 6 billion euros are needed.
Merely increasing disposable income in line with the new social minimum standards is not enough, the Commission writes. The entire social minimum system must become more predictable and accessible so that households actually use the benefits to which they are entitled. Accessible help and support are also important. This is the subject of the second report of the Social Minimum Committee. That will appear after the summer.
The Social Minimum Committee consists of eleven members, all experts in the field of social security, socio-economic, tax and legal issues and was established in July 2022 after a motion passed by Member of Parliament Omtzigt. The Commission has spoken intensively with citizens, civil society organizations and implementing organisations. This has helped the Committee in preparing this report. Minister Schouten’s assignment was to investigate what different household types need to make ends meet and to be able to participate in society, linked to the systems that should make this possible.
Read the report ‘A secure existence. Towards a future-proof system of the social minimum’ of the Commission Social Minimum.