Tribune. Marx had noted it in The capital : “At the end of the XVIIIe century and during the first twenty years of the XIXe, farmers and landlords [propriétaires terriens] Englishmen competed in their efforts to lower the wage to its absolute minimum. For this purpose, we paid less than the minimum in the form of salary and we compensated for the deficit by parish assistance ” (Book I, Social Editions, 2016 [1867], p. 583-584). Nowadays, the government regularly imagines new devices to compensate for wages that are too low: yesterday the “activity bonus”, today the “inflation compensation”. As a result, he maintains this salary situation with insufficient amounts to live on. The importance of these efforts to avoid any significant increase in wages is to be read in the light of a twenty-year-old debate.
In 2001, a discussion took place within the government of Lionel Jospin between the supporters of an increase in the minimum wage and the supporters of a bonus intended for low wages. The Prime Minister decides in favor of the premium. The “employment bonus” is then paid all at once to workers who receive between 0.3 and 1.4 times the minimum wage, in the form of a tax reduction or an annual allowance in the event of non-payment. -taxation. In the years that followed, its amount was the subject of several increases, one of the most important being that of Dominique de Villepin who presented it in 2006 as a flagship measure in favor of purchasing power. It will then become a monthly bonus and will be called activity bonus.
The question of the power of work
In December 2018, the movement of “yellow vests” is at its peak and Emmanuel Macron announces the increase of the maximum amount of the activity bonus of 100 euros. The premium is effectively increased, and the beneficiary public broadened. The activity bonus now supplements the income of workers receiving a salary of between 0.5 and 1.5 smic, in the simple case of a single person without children. In terms of the minimum wage, around 1,240 euros net, the premium is 230 euros. The ceiling not to be exceeded and the amount paid vary according to family composition and household resources.
In October 2021, in another economic context but to respond to the same difficulties for workers, the government announced the creation of an “inflation allowance” of 100 euros. It will be paid all at once, at the end of the year or at the beginning of next year depending on the status of the beneficiary. No request will be necessary. For employees, compensation will be paid by employers, a sum that the State will compensate.
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