Dutch households’ net actual income rose for the first time in two years in the first three months of this year, according to new figures from the national statistics office CBS.

At the same time, household debt has also gone down, the CBS says.

Net actual income rose 0.2% between January and March, but this was largely due to income from assets such as dividends, the CBS says. The self-employed also earned more and social security payouts were higher.

Net actual income is calculated using wages, social security benefits and income from assets and then adjusted for inflation.

Interest rates

However, excluding the impact of low inflation, disposable income actually fell, the CBS says.

Household debt fell over the same period by €2.4bn, of which €1.8bn was due to a drop in mortgage debt. Low interest rates on savings are encouraging people to pay off their mortgages instead, the CBS says.

Nevertheless, household debt remains high in European terms because many Dutch people have investment and savings-based mortgages which do not involve monthly repayments.

Strong

According to the Financieele Dagblad, the income on pensions has risen considerably over the past few years and only 2.5% of pensioners live below the poverty line. By contrast, 9.4% of non-pensioner households are officially poor.
‘Pensioners in the Netherlands have nothing to complain about in terms of their income,’ CBS economist Peter Hein van Mulligen told the paper. ‘People who are 65 plus have a guaranteed income in the form of the state pension, often a work-related pension and some have income from assets. Nowhere in Europe are pensioners as well off as in the Netherlands.’