His beginnings as a security guard, Alexandre Cornu, 45, remembers it perfectly. « Hired September 19, 2000. Paid about 7,000 francs! Yes, at the time, it was still the francs! », he smiles behind his thin glasses, one of which is cracked. It was the minimum wage at the time. Alexandre was then at the first level of the salary grid. “I thought that I would have a good evolution in this job, I was wrong”, he blurts out bitterly. Today a fire and rescue officer in one of the Defense towers, he has risen two steps in rank. But, after twenty-two years of experience, he again earns minimum wage: “caught up” by the minimum wage, as he says, which has increased faster than his salary.
This is one of the collateral effects of inflation that the latest INSEE estimate measures in France at 5.6% year on year in September, after 5.9% in August, and even 6.1% in July. Since its creation in 1950, the minimum wage has been indexed to the consumer price index and increases when the latter does the same. In a “normal” year, there is only one revision, on the 1er January. But, since 2021, it has known four: at 1er October 2021, to 1er January 2022, to 1er May and again on 1er August, i.e. a total of +7.76% over one year, which represents 98.45 euros net more per month. The minimum wage today stands at 11.07 euros gross per hour, i.e. 1,678.95 euros gross monthly.
However, 7.76% is still more than inflation over one year. Because the minimum interprofessional growth wage is not only indexed to the consumer price index but also partially to increases in the average hourly wage of workers and employees. Moreover, its level serves as the basis for the whole architecture of low wages in France.
A choice made to prevent the minimum wage from dropping out, as was the case for its ancestor, the smig (guaranteed interprofessional minimum wage), between 1951 and 1967. It had then progressed much less quickly than the average French wage pushed by the growth and productivity gains. Since 1982, the level of the minimum wage has stabilized between 58% and 63% of the median wage. Beyond this automatic increase, there has only been one additional “boost” since 2007, after the election of François Hollande. Since then, we have been strictly satisfied with the legal revaluation. More favorable in times of inflation.
For 2022, the latest figures available from the direction of the animation of research, studies and statistics of the ministry of labor indicate that the basic hourly wage of workers and employees had increased, at the end of June, by 3.5% over one year, and the basic monthly wage of all employees by 3.1%. “As the minimum wage is indexed to prices, and not the rest of the wages, and that they are not increasing at the same rate for the moment, we are witnessing a narrowing of the gap between the minimum wage and the rest of the wages.emphasizes Jérôme Gautié, professor of economics at Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne. This creates a phenomenon of flattening wages at the bottom of the hierarchy, in the private sector, as in the public sector. »
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