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Squeeze on the middle

Original title: Minder voor het midden

'Profit from the government' amounts to around 10% of Dutch GDP. Individual citizens profit from the government by making use of publicly funded provisions, for example as users of childcare facilities, as passengers on public transport, as pupils or students in education, as recipients of housing benefit or as visitors to museums. But who profits most from the government: citizens with higher or lower incomes? And do the middle incomes pay for this? To answer these questions, this report describes the distribution of profit from the government in the year 2007. The findings show that those on middle incomes do indeed profit slightly less, and those on higher incomes considerably more, than might be expected. This remains the case when considering the target groups of government policy. On the other hand, the profit from the government accruing to the higher incomes has reduced slightly over time.