The government’s intentions to support the standard of living of households are becoming clearer. One of the main measures to dampen galloping inflation will be to increase the amount of many benefits faster than expected. This provision is included in the draft law on the preservation of purchasing power to which The world had, in part, access. The increase will be 4% and will take effect from 1er July. According to our information, this is a budgetary effort of around 6.5 billion euros in 2022, and nearly 1.5 billion in the 2023 financial year.
A large part of this expenditure will be devoted to the increase in pensions paid by the basic schemes, its cost being around 5 billion euros for 2022. The revaluation will also apply to family benefits and social minima: income active solidarity allowance, specific solidarity allowance granted to unemployed people at the end of their rights, etc. Many other aids will also be concerned: activity bonus, invalidity pensions and annuities linked to an accident at work or an occupational disease, remuneration of vocational training trainees, etc.
The text will also introduce a ” shield “ to limit the maximum increase in rents to 3.5% ” for one year “, said Monday, June 27, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, on BFM-TV. Personalized housing assistance (APL) should be upgraded from 1er July, not the 1er October as usual, also by 3.5%.
Improvement of the transport premium
Another salient measure: the improvement of the tax system for the transport premium. This system concerns companies that cover all or part of the fuel costs of their employees using a personal vehicle to go to work. At present, this benefit is exempt from income tax up to a maximum of 200 euros per year. This ceiling will be increased to 400 euros “for the years 2022 and 2023”according to the “file” which presents the article included in the draft law.
In addition, the conditions for being eligible for the transport bonus will be temporarily relaxed in 2022 and 2023. All employees who use an electric, hybrid or hydrogen vehicle will be able to benefit from it. “for their journeys between their habitual residence and their place of work”. Finally, this bonus may be combined, in 2022 and 2023, with the assistance provided by the company to cover part of the price of a public transport subscription.
Finally, the executive seeks to put pressure on the professional branches whose salary scale has not taken into account the evolution of the minimum wage. One hundred and twenty of them displayed, in mid-June, a collective agreement containing at least a coefficient of remuneration lower than the minimum wage. These situations of ” noncompliance “ are, in many cases, linked to the reluctance shown by employers’ organizations to adjust to recent increases in the minimum wage.
The government therefore wants to put a sword in the back of the latecomers. With this in mind, the administration will have the option of carrying out the “administrative merger” branches that have an obsolete salary grid. At the present time, this possibility already exists for a branch which negotiates very few agreements and on a limited number of subjects. But, as the law currently stands, “non-compliance with the minimum wage does not appear to be a sufficient criterion to authorize” the State to carry out this act of authority, according to the presentation sheet which accompanies the preliminary draft law. The rules will therefore be rewritten to allow a merger, if it turns out that the “number of agreements guaranteeing conventional minima at the level of the minimum wage” is weak.