Income, consumption, wealth of households: key figures; National Accounts

Table explanation

Description topics

Total amount

Income

Receipts from production, wages, social transfers, and property income. Compensation of employees are the wages received for labour, including the social contributions paid for by the employers. Gross operating surplus, gross mixed income and gross disposable income are balancing items. Social transfers in kind are also included, together with disposable income, this leads to the balancing item adjusted disposable income.

Gross operating surplus and mixed income

The surplus that remains after compensation of employees and taxes less subsidies on production and imports have been subtracted from the sum of value added at basic prices. For the self-employed (who are part of the sector households) the surplus is called mixed income, because it is partly a reward for their entrepreneurship compensation of labour.
The operating surplus of households equals housing services produced for own consumption by owner-occupiers.

In the system of national accounts gross means that consumption of fixed capital (depreciation) has not been subtracted. When it has, net is used.

Gross mixed income

Mixed income is for households mainly equal to the income earned by sole proprietors and other entrepreneurs personally liable for all gains and losses from their activities. The income earned has both an element of wage income as well as profit since the entrepreneur is both rewarded for the provided labour input as well as the undertaken risks. Included in mixed income are rentals received from letting real estate and income earned from black and illegal activities.
In the system of national accounts gross means that consumption of fixed capital (depreciation) has not been subtracted. When it has, net is used.

Compensation of employees

The compensation of employees is the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, payable by an employer to an employee in return for work done by the latter during an accounting period. The compensation of employees is equal to the sum of wages and salaries and employers' social contributions.

Gross disposable income

The sum of the gross disposable incomes of the institutional sectors. Gross national disposable income equals gross national income (at market prices) minus current transfers (current taxes on income, wealth et cetera, social contributions, social benefits and other current transfers) paid to non-resident units, plus current transfers received by resident units from the rest of the world. Because disposable national income is not a production concept but an income concept, it is usually expressed in net terms, i.e. after deduction of depreciation (consumption of fixed capital).

Social transfers in kind

Social transfers in kind consist of individual goods and services provided for free or at prices that are not economically significant to individual households by government units and NPISHs, whether purchased on the market or produced as non-market output by government units or NPISHs. They are financed out of taxation, other government income or social security contributions, or out of donations and property income in the case of NPISHs.

Gross adjusted disposable income

Adjusted disposable income is equal to disposable income of households including any income transfers in kind provided to households free of charge by general government or NPISH. This variable facilitates comparisons over time and across countries when there are differences or changes in economic and social conditions.

In the system of national accounts gross means that consumption of fixed capital (depreciation) has not been subtracted. When it has, net is used.

Expenditure

Expenditures on goods and services that are used for the direct satisfaction of individual needs. This includes the social transfers in kind, which together with the individual expenditures result in actual individual final consumption.

Final consumption expenditure

Expenditure on goods or services that are used for the direct satisfaction of individual or collective needs. Expenses may be made at home or abroad, but they are always made by resident institutional units, that are households or institutions residing in the Netherlands. By definition only households, non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) and government institutions consume. Enterprises do not: expenses they make on goods and services are thought to serve production and are therefore classified as intermediate consumption of fixed capital formation. The general government is a special case. The government also has intermediate consumption, just like enterprises. But the output delivered by the government which is not directly paid for, non-market output (like safety), is classified as consumption by the general government. It is said that the government ‘consumes its own production’. The system of national accounts demands that all that is produced is also consumed (or serves as an investment). By convention, government output is consumed by the government itself. This is not the only consumption by the general government. It also contains social transfers in kind. In the Netherlands this mainly concerns health care bills paid for by the government and an allowance for the rent.

Actual individual consumption

Actual individual consumption of households equals social transfers in kind plus final consumption expenditure.

Gross saving

The portion of disposable income that has not been used for final consumption expenditure.

Wealth

Wealth components are assets, liabilities, and non-financial assets. The sum of these components equals net worth. Up to and including 2010 these data concern the households sector including the non-profit institutions serving households. From 2011 onwards these NPISH are no longer included.

Net worth

Net worth equals the financial assets minus the liabilities plus the non-financial assets.