No Amsterdammer should live in poverty
More than 20% of Amsterdam households live below the poverty threshold, including 35,000 Amsterdam children. Poverty is not a natural phenomenon, but a political policy. The increase in poverty is a direct result of the capitalist system: more and more facilities that are necessary for Amsterdam residents are being left to the free market, and there is little-to-no intervention to protect residents from poverty, homelessness and hunger. Structural racism also plays a major role in this. The benefits scandal at the Tax Administration is an example of this and has had serious consequences for many Amsterdam residents. Poverty is not a failure, not a coincidence, not people's own fault: poverty is policy.
Therefore BIJ1 presents the following points to fight poverty in Amsterdam:
- The municipality of Amsterdam will take a stand for single parents who get into financial trouble, especially single mothers.
- The municipality of Amsterdam will actively combat the poverty trap. The poverty trap means that when you make the step from welfare to paid work, you lose out.
- The municipality will increase the income supplement to €300 for single persons and €600 for people living together with a partner.
- The Bijzondere Bijstand will be extended. From now on, unforeseen and uninsurable medical costs can also be paid through Bijzondere Bijstand.
- The waiting period for wellfare will be shortened and the municipality will work with advances.
- The categorical Bijzondere Bijstand for people with a chronic illness will be extended: it will be based on actual costs incurred.
- People on welfare who are allowed to earn more extra money should have a better chance of getting out of welfare. In an experiment, the municipality of Amsterdam allows people on welfare to earn up to € 500 per month.
- BIJ1 resists the use of SyRi to trace fraud. The Tax Authorities have used discriminating and stigmatising risk profiles in their systems to check people, and this has led to the benefits scandal.
- The municipality stops putting (financial) pressure on Amsterdam residents on welfare and never imposes punitive reductions and fines on people on welfare who do not comply with obligations under the Participation Act.
- There will be end to the debt economy, by, among other things,
- Ending cooperation with commercial debt collection agencies. Debt should not be a business model;
- Taking over debts via the municipal credit bank more often, so that there is only one creditor and debts do not accumulate.
- The municipality will guarantee food security for all its residents.