July 13, 2014

Rich are getting poorer in the Netherlands

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:56 pm

swimming-pool-meraj-chhayaAn OESO study has discovered that the Netherlands bucks the trend of the rich getting richer at the expense of those paying for the crisis.

Good news, then? Not really. Z24 points out that the Dutch poor are also getting poorer. The group of people that live below the poverty line has increased from 6.7% in 2007 to 7.8% in 2011. In this study ‘rich’ is defined as belonging to the top 10% in disposable income and poor as the bottom 10%.

The financial news site points out that the poor have lost less income than the rich, which is an interesting mathematical factoid, but otherwise devoid of meaning in my opinion. If the poor lose 1.5% of their income it means they go without food for another five days in a year, while for the rich it means they have to wait five days longer before they can purchase their next luxury car. Not quite the same difference.

A group of people that has done relatively well for themselves during the crisis is the elderly whose income has stayed the same. The group of 18 to 25-year-olds has seen their income drop since 2007 by well over 2%, although those differences are minimal compared to those of the same age groups in other countries such as New Zealand and Israel where the elderly are getting rich at the cost of everybody else.

(Photo by Meraj Chhaya, some rights reserved)

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February 3, 2009

Amsterdam gets its first food bank for animals

Filed under: Animals,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 4:46 pm
Cat food

The very idea that people have to go to the food bank in the Netherlands, considering all the money and resources the poor have at their disposal, is shameful and embarrassing for many Dutch people. Not necessarily for the people who depend on the food banks, but the general view is that food banks should not exist and are painful to talk about.

But there’s a crisis on, and according to Animal Rescue Nederland, the first thing poor people skimp on is pet food. Animal Rescue Nederland is currently talking to several pet food manufacturers about putting together food parcels for people’s pets.

Will a food bank for animals be less of a taboo than for humans or will people comment about poor people owning pets they can’t afford in the first place? I wonder.

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April 18, 2008

Poor people give more (as do the connected and the religious)

Filed under: General,Religion by Branko Collin @ 9:03 pm

Poor people give more to charity than rich people … relatively speaking. According to a story in Z24 (Dutch), this is one of the outcomes of a study for a PhD thesis that Pamela Wiepking will present next Monday at VU University in Amsterdam. Wiepking claims the poor tend to give about the same as the rich because both groups have the same idea of what makes a fair donation; and since the poor earn less, what they give is a bigger percentage of their income.

Two other groups that give more according to Wiepking’s research are the well-networked people (they tend to trust others more) and the religious.

See also Wiepking’s 2007 paper “The Philanthropic Poor: In Search of Explanations for the Relative Generosity of Lower Income Households”.

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October 3, 2007

Free restaurant for the poor

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 11:21 am
fork1.jpg

Joy4You, a new restaurant for the poor, is opening its doors on Wednesday, 10 October in Utrecht. The poor can have a free meal on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Families as well as singles can eat there for free.

Everything is sponsored, as butchers, supermarkets and vegetable distributors provide them with food. People who want to eat at Joy4You must register with Stichting De Burcht-Armenzorg. Only after a meeting with this association can someone be eligible for a free meal.

But why an English dotcom name with negative connotations?

(Link: rtl.nl)

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