Even the RvA Does Not Understand Poverty

Even the RvA Does Not Understand Poverty

13 August 2026

Even the Raad van Advies (RvA) by definition understands little about poverty. That may sound harsh, but it is precisely the problem Tim ’S Jongers describes in his book Armoede uitgelegd aan mensen met geld. The people who formulate, advise on, and assess policy generally do not belong to the group that lives in poverty every day. Even people who grew up in poverty themselves and later moved up socially do not automatically understand what long-term poverty does to people today (’S Jongers, 2024).

That is why I expect that yet another document about poverty will ultimately have little concrete impact. Not because the analysis is necessarily wrong, but because we still approach the problem primarily from the perspective of institutions, statistics, and policy, and insufficiently from the reality of people actually living in poverty.

Moreover, we are spectacularly late.

As early as 2022, I wrote that Curaçao had become the poorest country within the Kingdom, measured by GDP per capita (Goede, 2022a). A week later, I wrote that Curaçao was not only relatively poor but also had many poor people. At the time, I pointed out that more than 30% of households were living below the poverty line (Goede, 2022b). That caused quite a commotion. People confronted me about it: surely that could not be true?

By now, we know better. CBS, based on the 2023 Census, established that 30.4% of households live below the monetary poverty line. Moreover, since 2011, not only has the number of poor households increased, but the depth and severity of poverty have increased as well (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek Curaçao [CBS], 2025).

My 2022 publication even found its way into an advisory report by the Sociaal-Economische Raad. But that is precisely my point: by now, we have enough reports, recommendations, statistics, and meetings to know that Curaçao has a serious poverty problem.

In 2023, I therefore wrote, hopefully, Eindelijk aandacht voor armoede op Curaçao (Goede, 2023). In April 2026, I repeated essentially the same message under the title Finally Attention for Poverty (II). One of the reasons was a meeting of the economists’ association devoted to poverty. For an entire afternoon, poverty received everyone’s attention. Afterwards, we simply returned to business as usual (Goede, 2026).

The Ombudsman has also drawn attention to poverty. And the most recent Enkuesta Sosial 2025 once again makes the social reality painfully clear. No less than 53.6% of households report that their income is insufficient to pay debts and interest obligations. In addition, 36.8% say their income is insufficient to afford healthy food (CBS, 2026).

How much more evidence do we actually need?

The problem is no longer that we do not know poverty exists. The problem is that we do not sufficiently understand what poverty is.

That is why I continue to recommend Tim ’S Jongers’ Armoede uitgelegd aan mensen met geld. The book was written precisely for the people who make policy about poverty, advise on it, and hold meetings about it. ’S Jongers demonstrates that poverty is not simply a lack of money and that many common assumptions about the behaviour of poor people are wrong. Fighting poverty therefore begins with learning to look differently at people living in poverty (’S Jongers, 2024).

This is consistent with what behavioural research has been showing for years. Scarcity consumes mental bandwidth. Someone who is constantly preoccupied with how to pay the rent, electricity bill, groceries, or school expenses makes decisions from a completely different reality than someone who enjoys financial security. Poverty therefore affects not only what someone has, but also the mental space available to think ahead and make choices (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013).

That is also why it is too simplistic to assume that economic growth will automatically solve the problem. Even the SER observed this year that economic improvement on paper can coexist with profound social vulnerability: while unemployment declined and employment increased, 30.4% of households were still living below the poverty line (Sociaal-Economische Raad Curaçao [SER], 2026).

That is Curaçao’s paradox. The economy can grow while a large part of the population barely notices the benefits.

The next step, therefore, should not be yet another report establishing that poverty exists. We know. The figures are on the table. CBS knows. The Ombudsman knows. The SER knows. The economists know. The government knows. And by now, the RvA knows as well.

The real question is much more difficult:

Do we understand poverty well enough to actually fight it?

Because knowing that poverty exists is something entirely different from knowing how to solve it.

And as long as we fail to understand that distinction, we will continue to research, discuss, advise on, and measure poverty.

But we will not solve it.

Miguel Goede

Bronnen

Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek Curaçao. (2025). Economische en sociale ontwikkelingen Curaçao 2023–2024. Willemstad: CBS Curaçao.

Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek Curaçao. (2026). Resultaten Enkuesta Sosial 2025. Willemstad: CBS Curaçao.

Goede, M. (2022a, 21 mei). Curaçao is de armste binnen het Koninkrijk? LinkedIn.

Goede, M. (2022b, 28 mei). Curaçao heeft ook de meeste en armste armen binnen het Koninkrijk. LinkedIn.

Goede, M. (2023). Eindelijk aandacht voor armoede op Curaçao. LinkedIn.

Goede, M. (2026, 17 april). Finally Attention for Poverty (II). University of Governance 5.0.

Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Times Books.

Sociaal-Economische Raad Curaçao. (2026, 8 april). Rondetafel bij SER draaide om de uitvoering.

’S Jongers, T. (2024). Armoede uitgelegd aan mensen met geld. De Correspondent.