The percentage of self-employed people who have to survive on less than €1040 alone or €1960 as a couple with children has risen to 8.5% in 2017, source FD.nl.
The fact that this percentage is increasing may also be due to the fact that the number of self-employed people continues to grow steadily, in 2017 already more than 1.1 million. In 2018, more than 100,000 were added again.
If you compare this percentage with people in employment, the difference really stands out. In 2017, that was 2.5%. A small bright spot is that “only” 0.6% of employees and 1.9% of the self-employed have been in this category for at least 4 years.
This means that a large part of the ZZP'ers temporarily earn very little. This can be explained because it takes a while before you have built up your business as a ZZP'er and have to invest some time.