Labour party leader: more money for the less fortunate

PvdA leader Lodewijk Asscher wants to invest an additional 100 million euros a year into helping people who have a hard time getting by, he said to the Leeuwarder Courant. He also wants to increase welfare benefits and child support.

The current Deputy Prime Minister praised the so-called Leeuwarden child package, which helps kids from less fortunate families join a sports club, take music lessons or go on a field trip. He wants to introduce a similar system nationwide.

Asscher also wants to increase the welfare benefits with an average of 200 euros a year and child support with an average of 100 euros per year. He wants to reserve 300 million euros to do so.

Earlier today Statistics Netherlands revealed that 8.8 percent of Dutch households lived below the poverty line in 2015 and 3.3 percent of them had been doing so for more than four years. That amounts to 221 thousand Dutch households in long-term poverty.