The Senate hemicyle (illustrative image).

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A. GELEBART / 20 MINUTES

It is a glow for the disabled.

The senators gave their agreement in committee on Wednesday to stop taking the spouse's income into account in the calculation of the Disabled Adult's Allowance (AAH).

A measure voted in the National Assembly at first reading in February 2020, against the opinion of the government and the majority.

The text will be examined at first reading Tuesday in the chamber of the Senate, with a right-wing majority.

The elimination of the taking into account of the spouse's income in the calculation of this allowance is a strong request from associations for the defense of the rights of disabled people and feminist associations.

A petition at the origin of this text

This demand was the subject of a petition on the Senate website, which exceeded 100,000 signatures, the first to reach this threshold, conditioning the possibility of inclusion on the agenda of the upper house.

The Senate Social Affairs Committee has taken up a bill from the Liberties and Territories deputies "on various measures of social justice", including the AAH, to give "an answer" to this petition, indicated to the presses its president Catherine Deroche (LR).

Since its creation in 1975, the AAH "has always had a hybrid character, between social minimum and compensation benefit", underlined the rapporteur LR Philippe Mouiller.

The senators "chose to decide" in favor of the second proposal, by accepting in committee the "deconjugalization" of the calculation of the AAH.

1.2 million beneficiaries

However, they modified the wording of the deputies to reintroduce the ceiling on the cumulation of the AAH with the beneficiary's own resources.

The device thus rewritten would have a cost estimated at 560 million euros, according to Philippe Mouiller, against 20 billion in the version voted by the deputies.

The rapporteur also provided for "a transitional mechanism" of 10 years, to allow beneficiaries of the AAH who would lose out to keep the current method of calculation.

Worth 900 euros per month (maximum for a single person), the AAH now has more than 1.2 million beneficiaries, of which 270,000 are couples.

According to estimates by the Drees, the deconjugalization of the AAH would make 44,000 losing households, said Philippe Mouiller.

In 2018, the Senate opposed a bill by the CRCE group with a communist majority aiming to remove the taking into account of the spouse's income in the calculation of the AAH.

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