According to a study by the statistical service of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Solidarity (Drees), the boost to small pensions for new retirees provided for by the reform will result in an average increase of around 30 euros per month.
This estimate by the Drees confirms the assessment that the National Old Age Insurance Fund (CNAV) had already made before the Senate last October.
This study evaluates the gain linked to the reform for the flow of new retirees in 2024 and thereafter.
But, it does not address the case of the 1.7 million people already retired at the time the reform came into force, on September 1, 2023. They too will benefit from an increase.
The CNAV estimated the gain brought by the reform at 60 euros on average.
The pension reform has revalued the “contributory minimum” (Mico), a support system for small pensions, so that they reach at least 85% of the net minimum wage (1,200 euros at the time of the reform), for an employee with completed a full career at minimum wage.
The government introduced this measure to strengthen the social aspect of a reform raising the legal retirement age to 64 years compared to 62 years previously.
But the executive and the majority were accused of having oversold the positive effect of the measure on the level of small pensions, by pretending a much more advantageous development than it really was.
For the Drees, the “revaluation of small pensions” effect of the pension reform will in any case continue in the years and decades to come, since the “Mico” is now indexed to the minimum wage and not to inflation .
Women benefit more from the minimum contribution
The proportion of new retirees benefiting from support for small pensions will thus remain well above what it would have been without the reform: almost 30% in 2024, with a drop to 25% in the following decade, and a slight rise in the following decades.
According to Drees, the reform also has a redistributive effect.
“It is for the most modest beneficiaries that the minimum contribution has the greatest effects,” she emphasizes.
In addition, the Drees indicates that “women benefit from the minimum contribution twice as often as men”.
“Thanks to the contributory minimum, the average pension gap in basic private sector schemes between women and men is reduced, from 16.6% to 14.5%,” she explains.
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Concerning the 1.7 million people already retired at the time the reform came into force, the CNAV estimated the gain brought by the reform at 60 euros on average.