With a view to improving livelihood security and combating poverty, in 2018 statutory minimum wages and social benefits such as the AOV (statutory pension), the AWW (widow, widower & orphan pension) and the ‘onderstand’ (income support) in the Caribbean Netherlands were indexed on the basis of the CBS consumer price index (CPI) for Q3 2017. On Saba, benefits and statutory minimum wages were not raised due to deflation amounting to 1.3 percent. On Bonaire and St Eustatius, benefits and statutory wages were indexed at 0.6 and 2.1 percent respectively. In the same period, on St Eustatius a special adjustment was made to the statutory minimum hourly wage and the AOV, AWW and ‘onderstand’ benefits on the basis of figures taken from the income statistic published by CBS. Benefits were raised by an additional 2.9 percent, resulting in a total increase of 5 percent on St Eustatius.
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