Nice lazy in the assistance

I'm just on Facebook, a message comes up saying there's too little money for refugee assistance benefits. The comments below the article show how the Netherlands feels about benefit recipients. “Make them work”, “and we pay taxes”, “just to the bin that trade”. it was just that simple.

Since 2013, I have been part of the group of pack it with 600,000 people in the Netherlands who have to pay by benefits. You know, those people who don't do anything all day long. Sit on the couch at home, watch a little TV, play games, relax. And at the end of the month, the money is in the account. Just like that, you don't have to do anything. Lovely right? It would make you almost jealous as a working person.

Okay, and then reality. “Sitting on the couch” at home means dividing your own time. Of course you don't sit on the couch all day. The household needs to be done, groceries, cooking, laundry, cleanup, cleaning, things like that. The things you're suddenly paid for as a domestic help because you're doing that job at another home. If you do it in your own home, it's not a job. A double standard I still don't understand. Raising the kids. Also something that isn't seen as work unless you do it as a nanny at another house. Managing finances isn't work until you do it for someone else. Garden maintenance, guiding the children with schoolwork, choice of study, their finances. All work that aren't seen as work, because you're “sitting at home on the couch”. You don't work. You don't have to leave the door to work for someone else. You will not be paid by an employer or client. You will be paid by the municipality. Well below the minimum, which is. But hey, delightful that freedom?

Well, of course, all those things you do at home are not in the social interest, so the participation law has been created. A law that even lawyers get a headache, but that aside. The goal is to get you off that couch and out the door as soon as possible. Because of course, that freedom of sitting on the couch at home can't be good for you. You have to be in touch with other people, otherwise you'll be depressed, you'll fall into isolation. Imagine losing ties to the job market, you can't do that anyway.! And so you'll do everything you can to get back to jail. Application training, “work experiences” places, work fast trajectory, hundreds of applications and as many rejections. So that makes you depressed. Not to mention the threat that is constantly overyourhead, which is made clear to you in every letter. If you don't cooperate in any way, you'll be reduced far below the minimum income. That fear is there every day. But hey, you're free to organize your own time and get “free” money. Lovely right?