Why does the government refuse to increase the RSA?

Poverty has been increasing in France since the start of the health crisis.

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• Faced with the increase in precariousness in France since the start of the health crisis, the Prime Minister will make announcements this Saturday in the fight against poverty.

• While the associations are asking for a revaluation of the social minima and an extension of the beneficiaries of the RSA, the government favors ad hoc aid to the most vulnerable.

• And this for economic reasons, but also ideological.

Explosion of requests for food aid, increase in RSA beneficiaries, increasing difficulties for the most precarious in paying their rent ... As a consequence of the confinement and the spread of the coronavirus, the situation of the most fragile is worsening in France.

"The economic crisis is turning into a social crisis", we recognize in Matignon.

With this in mind, the Prime Minister will make announcements this Saturday to fight poverty.

It will detail the exceptional aid of 150 euros for recipients of RSA (active solidarity income) and ASS (specific solidarity allowance), announced Wednesday evening by Emmanuel Macron during his television interview.

But we already know that this aid will be increased by a bonus of 100 euros per dependent child.

This aid, already paid in the spring during the first wave of the epidemic, should benefit 4.1 million households, including 5 million children.

Recipients of personalized housing assistance (APL) will only receive 100 euros per child, according to Matignon.

But Jean Castex should also announce a specific boost in the direction of young people.

"It's a social choice"

One-off aid, the objective of which is "to avoid a fall into poverty," explains one in the entourage of the Prime Minister.

"In particular autoentrepreneurs, temporary workers, employees at the end of fixed-term contracts ..." Aid certainly welcome, but which is not up to what the associations for the fight against poverty are asking for.

"This is one-off aid, while we are asking for a revaluation of social minima, the opening of the RSA for at least 25 years and the creation of a fund to secure rents", explains to

 Christophe Robert, the general delegate of the Abbé Pierre Foundation.

The associations had said it and repeated it to Jean Castex during a meeting two weeks ago.

"The modest population, under the shock of the crisis, especially young people, does not need a temporary gesture of charity but that we help them to live decently", also estimates the Observatory of inequalities.

If the associations obtained an end of non-acceptance, it is for several reasons.

First of all because one-off aid costs less to public finances than an increase in social minima or an expansion of its beneficiaries.

However, according to Christophe Robert, this budgetary argument does not hold: "The abolition of the ISF and the" flat tax "made the State lose nearly 5 billion euros per year.

And the government is in the process of making Parliament vote on a recovery plan of 100 billion euros.

Raising social minima is therefore not impossible, it is a societal choice ”, he insists.

During his five-year term, François Hollande, had decided to increase the RSA by 10% in five years.

Political voices in support of associations on the subject

If the government does not want to revalue social minima, it is also for ideological reasons, believes Christophe Robert.

“He does not want to be accused of reinforcing what some call assistantship.

As if touching the RSA or the ASS made it possible to live decently!

», He lambasted.

Emmanuel Macron did not hide it.

"Our fundamentals are the fight against poverty by returning to activity and work," he said on Wednesday, estimating that "the more we increase our social minima, the more difficult it is to return to work. 'activity'.

A theory supported for years by

Laurent Wauquiez,

LR president of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and former Secretary of State for Employment under Nicolas Sarkozy.

“We lost the sense of things.

Today, we pay benefits and we lock people into the assistantship, ”he said to

 18 months ago, demanding that hours of community service (TIG) be performed in return for the RSA. .

But the discussion is far from over, the associations do not intend to stop there.

Especially since political voices have come to lend them a hand in recent days.

The deputy of Val-d'Oise and ex-LREM Aurélien Taché, pleaded this Friday in a press release in favor of an "alternative poverty plan" and proposes to increase the social minima at the level of the poverty line, which would allow around five million people to benefit from additional income estimated on average at 150 euros.

For his part, the deputy and spokesperson for the PS Boris Vallaud called on the government in an interview with Les 

Friday to open the RSA to young people aged 18 to 25.

He is also in favor of a sustainable increase in the RSA and the specific solidarity allowance (ASS), and not exceptional aid, as the government has planned, a "handout" according to him.

What further revive the debate.

Society

"The most precarious are not the government's priority," said Najat Vallaud-Belkacem

Society

Coronavirus: More than half of French people are afraid of falling into poverty

• Covid 19

• Jean Castex

• Poverty

• Coronavirus

• Society

• Solidarity