Work more, earn less, pay much less taxes

The large gaps between the reality of life of the average Israeli and that of the average ultra-Orthodox only widened this year, in light of the conduct of sections of the ultra-Orthodox public in Corona. Data from the Israel Democracy Institute’s Haredi Society 2020 yearbook published today illustrate this well: by the end of October, 42% of corona patients in Israel were ultra-Orthodox, while their share of the Israeli population is only 12.5%. In other words, the ratio between the proportion of ultra-Orthodox patients and the proportion of ultra-Orthodox in the population is 3.4 times. The editors of the yearbook, Dr. Gilad Malach and Dr. Lee Kahner, wrote that this was a careful calculation and underestimation, noting that in the first wave the proportion of ultra-Orthodox patients reached 66% of the population and in the second wave 33%.

The main reason the eighty researchers for the mass infection in the ultra-Orthodox public is “an unwillingness to change the religious and communal way of life, especially on holidays and in white educational institutions.” Other reasons, they say, are lack of trust in the government and poor communication between the ultra-Orthodox establishment and the ultra-Orthodox public. Another major reason is overcrowding. The average ultra-Orthodox household is 5.2 persons, compared with an average of 2.9 persons for a non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish household. Accordingly, Bnei Brak is the most densely populated city in Israel, and its density is 6 times greater than the average in cities in Israel.

While the corona has increased ultra-Orthodox segregation and the sense of hostility between them and the rest of the population, it has also greatly strengthened ultra-Orthodox use of technology. The social distance and the need to work and make arrangements from home led to 66% of the ultra-Orthodox being connected to the Internet. This is a dramatic increase of 5 percentage points, which occurred in the first three months of the outbreak of the corona crisis. For comparison, a similar increase was recorded in 2019 as a whole. Even before the outbreak of the corona, it was clear that the ultra-Orthodox rabbis had failed in their struggle against computers in general and the Internet in particular, but the closures accelerated the trend significantly. Now, the rabbis will continue to wage a war of aggression against the use of smartphones and will continue to promote Internet filtering systems.

One of the oldest, bitter and constant debates between ultra-Orthodox and non-ultra-Orthodox is whether non-ultra-Orthodox fund the ultra-Orthodox. This year the yearbook incorporated data that unequivocally settles this debate. The monthly expenditure of ultra-Orthodox households on compulsory payments – income tax, social security and health insurance – is NIS 1,500. This amount constitutes 34% of the monthly expenditure of non-ultra-Orthodox households, which averages NIS 4,500.

Those who want to can perhaps take comfort in the fact that the ultra-Orthodox ‘expenditure on compulsory payments increased in the years 2015-2018 from NIS 1,250 to NIS 1,500 per month, an increase of 21%. This is slightly more than a 16% increase in the rest of the Jewish population. Malach and Kahaner speculate that this gap may be due to an increase in the rate of working Haredim.

A common ultra-Orthodox argument is that they pay more indirect taxes, mainly because they buy more. But this is impossible for those who earn less. The yearbook reveals that the net expenditure per non-Haredi Jew is NIS 4,700 per month, more than twice the expenditure per Haredi – NIS 2,200 per month. Moreover, the yearbook reveals that benefits and subsidies constitute 24% of the income of an ultra-Orthodox household, compared with only 9% of a non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish household – almost 3 times.

The average income from work per employee in the ultra-Orthodox sector in 2018 was NIS 7,800 – only 59% of the average income for non-ultra-Orthodox Jews, which was NIS 13,100. The income of ultra-Orthodox men was 56% of that of other Jewish men. For women, the situation is slightly better – 66% than for non-Haredi Jewish women. For men, this gap is due to low general education and a relatively low number of working hours, among other things to enable parallel studies to work. For women, the low income is mainly due to part-time jobs due to the need to take care of the family, as well as the desire to work in an ultra-Orthodox area, which reduces employment opportunities.

The average income from work for an ultra-Orthodox employee has dropped since 2003 from 76% of the income of non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish workers, to 59% in 2018. Angel explains the change for two reasons. One is the entry of more ultra-Orthodox to work at low income levels. That is, the more ultra-Orthodox people without professional skills enter the labor market, the lower the average income of the sector. The second reason is that the general labor market is becoming more educated, and the ultra-Orthodox are falling even further behind.

The ultra-Orthodox students constitute 25% of all Hebrew education students, and 19% of all students in Israel. The share of the ultra-Orthodox in the education system will continue to grow, but at a slower pace than before. If until 2013 the number of ultra-Orthodox students increased by 4.2% per year, now the growth rate has dropped to 3.5% per year. In contrast, Jewish state education has grown at a rate of 2.3% per year, after growing by only 0.5% per year in the previous decade. That is, the growth rate gap narrowed by two-thirds. The result is that if the share of ultra-Orthodox education in general Hebrew education grew at the beginning of the decade by half a percent every year now it is growing by 0.3%.

Malach says that there is a very big difference in the pace of change in ultra-Orthodox society between women and men. An example of this is the issue of matriculation exams. In the past, ultra-Orthodox society had great opposition to participating in matriculation exams, in order to make it difficult for graduates to go to academia. Instead, girls’ seminars have the external Szold exams, which in 2012 received recognition from the state as equivalent to partial matriculation. Still, the growing appeal of ultra-Orthodox women to academia has led to great change.

The proportion of ultra-Orthodox girls who took at least one matriculation exam rose from 31% in 2009 to 55% in 2018, so that today most ultra-Orthodox girls approach some form of matriculation. However, the proportion of ultra-Orthodox students eligible for a full matriculation certificate still stands at only 20%. For boys, only 13% take one or more matriculation exams. This is despite the opening of quite a few ultra-Orthodox high school yeshivot preparing for matriculation.

The bad news is that the number of adult yeshiva students funded by the Ministry of Education has increased from 98,000 in 2014 – the government term with the participation of Yesh Atid – to a record 140,000 today, an increase of about 43%. Of these, the number of married yeshiva students has increased from 67,000 to 95,000. If this dizzying rate of increase in the number of students continues, in 2021 Israel will cross the 100,000 line for the first time. However, the corona crisis may slow the pace. Kahaner and Malach state: “There is a clear connection between the state’s budgeting for Torah institutions as well as other supports related to the return of the ultra – Orthodox parties to the coalition, and the number of yeshiva students.”

The good news is that after several years of shuffling instead of the number of ultra-Orthodox students, there was an increase of 9% in the previous school year (2019/20), from 12,000 to 13,000. Here, too, the weight of women is greater, with an increase of 12%, compared with an increase of only 3% in men. Among graduate students, there was a sharp increase of 17%, compared to 8% in undergraduate degrees. Today, 2,240 ultra-Orthodox are studying for graduate degrees. Unlike ultra-Orthodox undergraduate students, most of whom study in gender segregation, most ultra-Orthodox graduate students study on the regular campuses of universities.

The yearbook also shows that the incidence of poverty in the ultra-Orthodox sector dropped from 58% in 2005, in the days following Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic plan, to 42% in 2018. This change was due, among other things, to a significant increase in the employment rate in the sector. In 2019, 77% of ultra-Orthodox women were employed and 53% of men. The corona crisis, which has hit ultra-Orthodox society hard, is expected to catapult poverty in the short term. But Malach estimates that the crisis will push more ultra-Orthodox men to work. If this happens, it may actually reduce poverty in the medium term.