The gap between rich and poor is to some extent food for discussion. Both rich and poor seem aware of this social divide, if only because the differences are becoming visible, among other things, the corona pandemic and house prices.

A report published today by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) shows that income inequality in the Netherlands has been stable since the 1990s. The superstatisticians examined more than 40 years of income data from 1977 to 2019, and concluded that the Netherlands is a payment egalitarian country if it receives on income.

Purchasing power, for example, has been expected to grow continuously over the past forty years, both for rich and poor. However, the government must work harder on the (tax and benefits) knobs to keep the income gap unchanged: incomes at the top grow faster than at the bottom, but thanks to the government’s toolbox, this is partly closed. In 2019, for example, the income redistribution reduced the Gini coefficient from 0.54 (primary income) to 0.29 (disposable income).

The Gini-what? An economic measure of inequality, where 0 is equal and 1 is unequal. In other words, the Netherlands seems to be nice in terms of disposable income, even in comparison with other European countries, the Netherlands is in the right row of countries with the highest Gini coefficient. In addition to the highest earning 1% of the Netherlands, 6 to 7% of total income, a percentage that is 19% in the US and 13% in Germany.

So all neatly distributed, but the inequality pain is partly due to government intervention not on the income side but on the wealth side. With over 1 trillion (thousand billion) euros, the richest 10% of the Netherlands owns more than 1.5 times as much as the other 90%.

By the CBS still very important because the indirect, important important in the number of zeros, to calculate. Fortunately, there is the Citaat 500, next month it will become clear how fast the wealth of the 500 richest in the Netherlands has grown over the past year. We can safely say that this percentage far exceeds the economic growth figures.

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