The cabinet has dropped a planned cut to welfare outreach services after two of its own coalition parties turned against it.

Work and participation minister Thierry Aartsen said on Friday that he would instead tighten the income threshold for the child budget, a means-tested benefit paid to lower- and middle-income parents.

The right-wing liberal VVD minister had planned to save €30 million a year by scrapping government efforts to actively contact people who qualify for welfare (bijstand) but have not claimed it.

Research suggests that around a third of those entitled – roughly 210,000 people – do not apply, often because the system is complex or because they fear being ordered to repay money later, a legacy of the childcare benefits scandal.

Coalition revolt

The cut drew heavy criticism when it appeared in the government’s mid-year budget update.

The local-authority association VNG called it “unacceptable”, and national ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen wrote to Aartsen to say that the cabinet was “people who have to choose between shoes for the kids and bread on Friday”.

MPs from the social-liberal D66 and Christian democrat CDA – both in the coalition alongside the VVD – then joined the opposition in rejecting the plan, leaving Aartsen to find the money elsewhere.

Child budget squeeze

His replacement proposal lowers the income threshold at which parents start to lose the child budget from €60,000 to €58,000 from 2027.

The €60,000 figure is itself a recent tightening, introduced in the previous cabinet’s 2025 spring budget update to phase the benefit out faster for higher earners.
Aartsen’s proposal would bring more families into that steeper phase-out band.

Parliament still has to approve the change. It is the second time this month that Jetten’s cabinet has dropped a planned social security cut.

On 8 April it abandoned plans to speed up the rise in the state pension age after a cross-party majority in the senate backed a motion to scrap it.