French-style redistribution still works well.
This is the conclusion of a study by the DREES, the statistics department of the Ministry of Solidarity and Health, which looked at the different mechanisms to ensure the distribution of wealth in favor of the poorest households. modest.
In 2018, social benefits and direct taxes thus made it possible to reduce the poverty rate in France by 7.5 points.
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In their absence, 22.3% of the population would be considered poor - that is, having a standard of living below 60% of the median standard of living - compared to 14.8% currently.
This already corresponds to 9.3 million people.
For this large public, social benefits contribute around 40% of their disposable income and, more concretely, represent an additional 342 euros per month on average.
In detail, the social minima, like the active solidarity income (RSA) or the specific solidarity allowance (ASS), correspond to 14% of the disposable income of the poorest French people, housing assistance 12 %, family benefits 11% and the activity premium 3%.
"However, without additional income, these social benefits alone do not allow to cross the poverty line",
underlines the study of Drees. Logically, the crisis has not helped the situation of a good number of French people who have fallen into these systems: after two years of slight increase, the number of recipients of social minima increased more clearly in 2020, i.e. 4 , 3%. Thus, 4.48 million people were beneficiaries of a social minimum. And all this has a cost: in total, 28.3 billion euros were paid as social minima in 2019 (i.e. 1.2% of GDP), an amount up by 2.9% compared to 2018 .