Nearly 7 percent of kids in Netherlands living at risk of poverty

Last year, 891,000 people in the Netherlands lived in households with an income below the low-income threshold. A quarter of them, 209,000, were children. That means that 6.6 percent of children in the Netherlands are growing up at risk of poverty, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported.

That percentage is slightly lower than in 2020 when 6.8 percent of children lived at risk of poverty. For the population as a whole, the risk remained the same in 2020 and 2021 at 5.4 percent. The long-term poverty risk, when people live in a low-income household for at least four consecutive years, also decreased slightly from 2.4 percent in 2020 to 2.3 percent last year.

The low-income threshold is a fixed purchasing power amount CBS adjusts annually for price developments. Last year, it was 1,130 euros per month for a single person, 1,590 euros for a couple without children, and 2,170 euros for a couple with two minor children. For a single parent with two minor kids, it was 1,720 euros.

Last year, 142,000 people had paid work and still lived in a household below the low-income threshold. That is 1.1 percent of all workers, compared to 1.2 percent in 2020. Freelancers - self-employed persons with no employees - were most likely not to earn enough at 6 percent. Employed persons had the lowest poverty risk, but as they form the largest group of workers, the size of the group at risk of poverty was also the biggest at 74,000, compared to 7,000 self-employed persons with employees and 60,000 freelancers.

The risk of poverty is difficult to escape. According to the statistics office, people from low-income households are more likely to have less money left over, dip into their savings often, and incur debts than people from higher-income families.