Editing History of Belgium (section)

==== Growth and poverty ====
After the war, the government cancelled Belgium's debts. It was during this period that the well-known Belgian highways were built. In addition, both the economy and the average standard of living rose significantly. As noted by [[Robert Gildea]], "Social and economic policy was designed to restore liberal capitalism tempered by social reform, as prepared for during the war. Trade unions were also involved in a price and wage policy to cut inflation and this, together with the Allied use of Antwerp as the main entry point for war supplies, produced the so-called Belgian miracle of high economic growth combined with high wages."<ref>Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: daily life in occupied Europe by Robert Gildea</ref> According to one study, Belgian workers by 1961 earned wages "second only to those of the French in the Common Market area", and earned 40% more than their Dutch counterparts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tony Cliff: Belgium – strike to revolution? (Spring 1961) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1961/xx/belgium.htm}}</ref>

Despite postwar affluence, however, many Belgians continued to live in poverty. An organisation of several poverty action groups, known as the National Action for Security of Subsistence, claimed that more than 900,000 Belgians (about 10% of the population) lived in poverty in 1967, while in the early 1970s, a group of social scientists called the Working Group on Alternative Economics estimated that about 14.5% of the Belgian population lived in poverty.<ref>Victor George and Roger Lawson, eds. ''Poverty and Inequality in Common Market Countries'' (1980)</ref>

Because Flanders had been widely devastated during the war and had been largely agricultural since the Belgian uprising, it benefited most from the Marshall Plan. Its standing as an economically backward agricultural region meant that it obtained support from Belgium's membership of the [[History of the European Union#The three communities|European Union]] and its predecessors. At the same time, Wallonia experienced a slow relative decline as the products of its mines and mills came to be less in demand. The economic balance between the two parts of the country has remained less in favour of Wallonia than it was before 1939.