Needy families are lining up for free handouts at food banks across the Netherlands, underscoring how poverty is taking root even in lower middle-class families and why tackling it has become a major theme in Wednesday\u2019s parliamentary election.<\/p>\n
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Volunteers prepare donations at the\u00a0food bank in Leidschendam-Voorburg in the Netherlands, where hundreds of families rely on handouts to avoid going hungry.<\/span><\/p>\n If it gets any worse, \u201cthen it really becomes a scandal for society,\u201d said Rob Kuipers, a 70-year-old retired senior civil servant who is the chairman of the local food bank in Leidschendam-Voorburg, within easy cycling distance of the parliament in The Hague.<\/p>\n The cost-of-living crisis, a chronic shortage of social and affordable housing and limits on access to affordable healthcare have combined to become known by the catch-all title \u201csecurity of existence\u201d in election campaigning, and it\u2019s a topic all parties are addressing in their election programs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe, for a long time, had people living in poverty, but this was always, relatively speaking, a smaller group and a quite marginal group and now this has spread to the lower middle class. And that, I think, is the reason why we are talking so much about it now,\u201d said Maurice Crul, a professor of sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was always a topic that the progressive or the left-wing parties put on the agenda,\u201d he added. \u201cBut now you see that also populist right-wing parties and the middle party is putting this on the agenda big time, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Crates at the ready: A rise in the cost of living has forced people in one of the richest countries in the world to rely on food handouts. <\/span><\/p>\n That centrist \u201cmiddle party\u201d is personified by Pieter Omtzigt, a former Christian Democrat who set up the New Social Contract over the northern summer. It is already polling so high that he will play a key role in coalition talks once the votes have been counted.<\/p>\n After years campaigning on behalf of marginalised members of society and uncovering government scandals, he\u2019s made tackling poverty one of his two main campaign themes.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a long list of things we need to do to challenge that cost-of-living crisis,\u201d he told reporters at a campaign event. \u201cWe will make the primary necessities of life affordable,\u201d his party\u2019s manifesto says, with measures including reforming taxation and welfare rules to give people more disposable income.<\/p>\n The centre-right People\u2019s Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte \u2013 traditionally seen as a party for the wealthy and a supporter of the free-market economy \u2013 is also pledging to help.<\/p>\n In Leidschendam-Voorburg, a town of some 78,000 residents, 250 families are relying on the food bank.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTo make sure people who work full time can make ends meet, we will raise the minimum wage,\u201d the party\u2019s manifesto pledges. \u201cTo tackle childhood poverty, we will give targeted support to families with children.\u201d<\/p>\n Underscoring how the issue cuts across traditional party lines, a centre-left two-party bloc led by former European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans proposes some of the same solutions. It advocates raising the Dutch minimum wage to \u20ac16 ($26) per hour. For employees aged over 21 years, the current minimum is \u20ac12.79 per hour for a 36-hour work week.<\/p>\n For some workers and for others living on welfare benefits, that is not enough.<\/p>\n The national umbrella organisation for 176 Dutch food banks says they serve a total of 38,000 households \u2013 100,000 people \u2013 each week and that 1.2 million people live below the poverty line. The number is down slightly from a year ago when inflation was soaring in the Netherlands and across the world.<\/p>\n Just 18 months ago, the food bank in Leidschendam-Voorburg, a municipality of some 78,000 people that recently ranked fifth in a survey of the most \u201cliveable\u201d towns in the Netherlands, had 140 clients. That shot up to 250 as a cost-of-living crisis swept across the world and did not spare the wealthy in the Netherlands. Those 250 households amount to up to 700 people, Kuipers said.<\/p>\n The true number of people on the breadline may be much higher. At the Leidschendam-Voorburg food bank, Kuipers estimates the true number of people eligible for food aid could be two to three times higher.<\/p>\n Now he is waiting to see how the election plays out and the new constellation of parties joining forces to run the country.<\/p>\n Party programs \u201care full of beautiful words and relatively few precise actions\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n He\u2019s watching to see \u201chow those beautiful words will be translated into concrete actions\u201d after the election.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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