Welfare

Life in Belgium is pretty cushy. Public transportation is efficient, and comprehensive; the streets are clean, and filled with mostly well dressed well fed people. Sure income taxes are about 54%, but oh the benefits… Sharon, for instance, gets the following deal. She contributes 1.40€ from her paycheck which her employer adds another 4.60€ which the government returns to her in the form of 6€ vouchers for every day that she works which can be exchanged for food at restaurants or groceries. The government with employers thereby provide substantial assistance to local eateries, though I guess you could spend the vouchers at McDonalds if you really wanted. Along with food vouchers, Sharon gets something like 100€ per year in athletic vouchers that she can use for a gym membership or sports classes as well as 100€ in culture vouchers. This year she’s splitting hers between books, movies, and theater tickets. To be entirely honest, this system has a drawback. Employers tend to distribute tax free benefits like these rather than raise people’s actual salaries to avoid having to pay the extra taxes. It’s a nice way to supplement discretionary spending, but people like Sharon who will end up looking for work outside the EU need to show cold salary figures to future employers. Even so, lunch on the company/state sounds swell to me. Sharon had a yellow tofu curry and I got fresh spring rolls.