What is the single social allowance that Michel Barnier is calling for?

The Prime Minister, who intends to “debureaucratize” the payment of social benefits by merging them, wishes to open this project soon so that it can be completed “in the coming years”.

Should social benefits be merged? The idea, which regularly comes up in public debate, was formulated by the Prime Minister, Thursday October 3, in “L’Evénement” on France 2. Michel Barnier announced his intention to set up a “single social allowance”. The head of government, who thus intends “debureaucratize” the payment of allowances, warns however that this “The construction site will take a little time.”

🗣️ “I am going to open a project: the single social allowance. We must debureaucratize this mass of allocations”

👤 @MichelBarnierPrime Minister, guest of #Eventpresented by @Caroline_Roux pic.twitter.com/lzljNVMIj0

— L’Événement (@LevenementFTV) October 3, 2024

This allowance “will merge several social benefits and ensure that people in work systematically earn more than others”, added the head of government in La Tribune Sunday. However, it does not specify what services it intends to combine.

In 2021, while he was seeking the nomination of the Les Républicains party for the presidential election the following year, Michel Barnier was already carrying this measure in order to“encourage work and merit, to the detriment of assistantship”. The objective was then to “limit assistance income, in particular with a ceiling between the RSA [revenu de solidarité active] and the APL [aides au logement]”, then explained to Capital the rapporteur of his project, the deputy Olivier Marleix. At the time, however, Michel Barnier promised Point of “sanctuary” old age and disability assistance.

Before him, during the 2017 presidential election, Emmanuel Macron had defended a similar idea: “a single social payment”. The single social allowance also evokes the “universal activity income” which was supported by former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in 2018, recalls The Dispatch. This project, whose work was stopped by the health crisis, envisaged bringing together the RSA, the activity bonus, the specific solidarity allowance, the APL or even the allowance for disabled adults (AAH), listed the government .

On the side of the current government, we do not yet know the exact form that this unique social allowance would take, which would only see the light of day “in the coming years”, warned Michel Barnier. The measure should therefore not appear in the government’s draft budget which will be presented to the Council of Ministers on Thursday.

On the other hand, it could be supported by members of the Prime Minister’s political camp during the examination of budgetary texts in Parliament. In the midst of debates on the spiraling public deficit, the deputies of the Republican Right presented on October 2 a series of measures in order to achieve 50 billion euros in savings. In this plan, consulted by franceinfo, the group led by Laurent Wauquiez notably recommends a “single capped social allowance” has “70% of the minimum wage”, “with the exception of certain benefits whose specificity is justified, such as the disabled adult allowance”. According to them, this measure would save money. “of the order of 7 billion euros” next year.

For its part, Ifrap, a liberal think tank which defends the establishment of a single social allowance, believes that a merger of benefits, with “a cumulative ceiling set at 100% of the minimum wage, initially, then 90% secondly”would ultimately lead to 5 billion euros in savings “on services and reduction of management costs”.

Concerning the effectiveness of such a measure, Julien Damon, associate professor at Sciences Po and author of a report submitted in 2018 to Edouard Philippe on the subject, believes with the Figaro that one single social allowance would have the advantage of providing “simplicity” and of “clarity”. “But simplifying is complicated”he warns. This measure would require, among other things, harmonizing the periods taken into account for eligibility for benefits.

Furthermore, in 2018, a report from France Stratégie, an organization attached to Matignon, revealed by The Worldbelieved that a single social allowance could do more “losers” than “winners”. The report anticipated a drop in resources for 3.55 million households and an increase for 3.3 million other households, reports the daily.