Have wages stopped rising for 20 years, as Eric Zemmour claims?

“For twenty years, you know how many salary increases there have been on average per year? 0.6% per year. There has been no salary increase for twenty years”, assured Eric Zemmour, interviewed Tuesday, February 7, on France Inter. According to the candidate for the presidential election, the payroll of the French would therefore not have changed in two decades. Said like that, it is false.

Eric Zemmour contradicts himself in the same sentence. As he himself points out, wages increased by 0.6% per year on average between 1996 and 2018. This is confirmed by an INSEE study published last year. In addition, this study indicates that “the purchasing power of the net salary in the private sector increased by 13.1% between 1996 and 2018”. The INSEE speaks here of an increase in “constant euros”, this means that we are talking about wages corrected for inflation. In other words, even if we can always judge that it is not enough, the purchasing power of employees has indeed progressed over the last two decades.

However, wages have increased at a much slower pace over the past forty years. INSEE recalls that wages tripled between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the 1980s, rising from an average of 613 euros to nearly 1,900 euros. But this corresponds to the period of the Glorious Thirties. The purchasing power of wages then slowed from the second oil shock of 1978.

According to one of the leaders of this study, the slowdown in growth that followed, as well as the increase in unemployment, the appearance of short-term contracts and the development of part-time work are all factors that explain this brake.

However, the INSEE study does not allow us to conclude that all wages have increased. Quite the contrary. We know, for example, that the share of executives among employees has increased considerably among employees. However, executives are the best paid. This trend therefore mechanically pulls the average wage upwards. INSEE even explains that this explains “about 55% of the increase in the average salary since 1996, the evolution of salaries for a given socio-professional category and sector explaining the rest.