The bill for wachtgeld, the special unemployment benefit paid to former ministers and MPs without a new job, has gone up from €1.6 million to €8.1 million over the past 10 years, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Thursday.

The most recent cabinet, which lasted less than a year, saw 19 out of 30 cabinet ministers quit – all of whom are entitled to payments to replace their lost income. The total is likely to increase again in 2026, when most of the remaining ministers are out of work, the paper said.

Ministers and MPs who end up jobless are paid 80% of their salary for the first year and 70% for a further two years and two months, depending on how long they were in office. A cabinet minister earns some €14,760 a month and an MP €10,134, plus expenses and pension contributions.

Ministers and MPs are required to apply for jobs and can still claim a proportion of their wachtgeld if their new salary is lower than their previous one, as former minister Klaas Dijkhoff did controversially in 2019.

MPs who serve less than three months are still entitled to six months’ payments, and the benefit is also paid if MPs and ministers step down voluntarily.

“The increase is down to voter volatility and the lack of stable cabinets,” Radboud University professor Hansko Broeksteeg told the paper. “The last three cabinets collapsed. But if a cabinet lasts the full four years, then the total amount will go down.”

The new coalition wants to slash unemployment benefits for ordinary workers from one year to two, and eventually reduce the maximum payment to no more than around €3,500 per month.

“The wachtgeld regulation is based on the need to bring in good people, and then you should not be petty about the benefit itself,” said Leiden University professor Barend Barensen.

Politicians need to be independent to function well, and they need to know that they won’t get into financial difficulty if they resign or have to quit, he said. “Remember, a minister can be sacked because of a mistake made by his or her predecessor,” he told the paper.

Last year, far-right party Forum voor Democratie made use of the wachtgeld system to help non-elected people into parliament by swapping sitting MPs in and out of the system.