The Dutch statistics office CBS expects there will be a small drop in the number of minimum income households this year and in 2016 but that the number of long-term low income households will rise sharply.

The CBS defines a single person with an income of below €1,020 a month as being poor. It calculates that 10.4% of the Netherlands seven million families were low income households last year, but that this will fall to 10.1% in 2015 and 10% in 2016.

At the same time, the number of families who have had a low income for more than four years will rise 10% to 3.3% of the total.

Families with a non-western background are now six times more likely to living on low incomes for more than four years than the native Dutch. Single parent families and single pensioners are also more likely to be poor, the CBS said.