“You can’t solve poverty with money alone”

A better way of thinking 

“There are two dominant narratives in our society that are not very helpful in addressing poverty and debt problems,” says Beuving. “There is the neoliberal narrative of self-reliance: everyone should be capable of taking care of themselves, and if they can’t, it’s their own fault. But that is a fiction. The other narrative—that of victimhood—is just as problematic. As social scientists, we try to offer a better framework: people have some agency in shaping their lives and are not merely victims, but there are also structural conditions that can severely limit them.” 

For the past three years, Beuving and Gesthuizen have been working on this together with economist Luuk van Kempen within REGAIN (Radboud Expertise Group on Action against INdebtedness). Their goal is to contribute to reducing poverty and to share research insights with societal partners such as municipalities, hospitals, the Red Cross, Bindkracht 10, and the NVVK (umbrella organisation for credit institutions). “There is a clear need for this. The cost of the debt industry is 2.5 times greater than the total debt burden, and it’s only increasing.” 

Benefits letters 

Both inside and outside the classroom, they pay explicit attention to poverty and debt issues. “In this way, we try to contribute to destigmatization,” says Beuving. 

In their lectures, the RGAIN researchers focus extensively on societal, institutional, and bureaucratic factors. “For our students, this is a real eye-opener. For example, we show them a benefits letter: what does it say? They look at it and don’t understand a thing. And that’s just one example—multiply that by twenty if you are financially dependent.” Betkó adds: “If you are poor, you need a lot of bureaucratic skills to apply for everything you are entitled to and to avoid making mistakes that could label you as a fraudster and force you to repay money.”

The welfare state 

However, the idea of the welfare state as a safety net has weakened in several countries. And that is bad news for poverty reduction, says Gesthuizen. “In the Netherlands, the welfare state—with its caring, connecting, and uplifting functions—has been steadily hollowed out in recent decades. Moreover, decentralization and budget cuts make it harder to tackle social problems.” Betkó adds: “For example, two-thirds of the budget for helping people return to work from social assistance has been cut.” 

This may seem like bad news only for poor and disadvantaged citizens, but it also affects the better-off, Betkó argues. “If you are wealthy, you benefit from less crime, less nuisance, and less violence on the streets.” Gesthuizen adds: “In the end, you also pay less tax because there are fewer costs for things like youth care or debt restructuring. It doesn’t all have to be centrally controlled, but it does need to be facilitated from above. You need a guiding national government.” 

Currently, the level of support and opportunity people receive depends too much on the municipality they live in. For example, the municipality of Nijmegen has a relatively generous minimum-income policy and is sometimes willing to apply rules less rigidly. Betkó recalls a question he recently received during a guest lecture in public administration: “A student asked me: ‘I’m from Maastricht, where the policy is less generous. I see far fewer homeless people there than here—so does your policy actually work?’ The answer is simple: homeless people are helped here and not in Maastricht, so it’s not surprising they come here.” 

Putting on band-aids 

In addition to inequality between municipalities, another problem is that at the local level you are often just “putting on band-aids,” as Betkó calls it. “We cannot lift someone out of poverty in a comprehensive way, but have to rely on suboptimal measures such as referring someone to a food bank or clothing bank, and providing free menstrual products or an energy allowance. As a municipality, we are not allowed to implement income policy. You can only truly solve poverty when the national government opens its wallet.”

From the book: 'De kracht van verbinding' (in Dutch)

This article is a shortened version of a chapter from the book De kracht van verbinding.

Melting polar ice, rapidly declining biodiversity, heatwaves and floods, and persistent poverty and injustice in many parts of the world. Is it too late to turn things around? Quite the opposite. De kracht van verbinding, published by Radboud University, shows students, teachers, and professionals how they can contribute to a more sustainable planet from within their own fields of expertise.

Read the book here (in Dutch) in open access