this average bonus of 806 euros deprives you of a real salary increase

Exit the Macron PEPA version bonus, welcome the Macron PPV version bonus, for value sharing bonus. Potentially more generous, and above all taken, has the new Macron bonus deprived you of a more sustainable salary increase at the end of 2022? INSEE answers this question indirectly…

Codename: value-sharing bonus. Nickname: Prime Macron. Average amount: 806 euros, in 2022, according to INSEE. Beneficiaries: nearly 5million salariesagain according to INSEE, which is based on the statistics of Urssaf.

From a strictly accounting point of view, the Macron premium reviewed and corrected on July 1, taking the place of the exceptional purchasing power bonus (PEPA), is a success: the number of beneficiaries has rebounded and the amount of the bonus paid has exploded compared to the Macron bonuses of the last few years.

The 2019 version PEPA had benefited 4.8 million salaries, for an average amount of 401 eurosPEPA 2020 was paid out over 6million salaries, new for 590euros average bonusand the PEPA 2021 did slightly less well with 506euros average premium for less than 4million beneficiaries.

The Value Share Bonus is a game-changer: the ceiling has been tripled, from 1,000 to 3,000 euros, or even 6,000 euros in the event of a profit-sharing agreement, and it loses its exceptional character to be permanently enshrined in law. Remains an exceptional character, in 2022 and 2023: for the time being it is totally tax free, both for the employer and for the employee. In 2024, this full tax exemption will end. As for the PEPA, this bonus remains optional: it is the employer who decides whether or not to pay it to his employees, the only limit being the tax advantage of reserving this one-time bonus for employees earning less than 3 times the minimum wage.

Potential windfall effects

Beneficiaries thus represent 30% of all employees, notes INSEE in its quarterly economic note, published this Wednesday, March 15, in which a lighting is devoted to the PPV. The amounts paid per beneficiary are, on average, higher in finance and in certain sectors of industry and, conversely, lower in transport, trade and accommodation and catering, observes in particular INSEE.

The Macron version 2022 bonus – in the form which therefore continues in 2023 – has, according to INSEE, contributed to the acceleration of the average salary per head, including the 4.1 billion euros in tax-free bonuses paid to employees. But does this bonus without tax or social contributions take the place of a real salary increase? INSEE does not answer this question directly… but provides telling clues.

The premium cannot, in theory, replace pay increases or bonuses provided for by a salary agreement or by the employment contract, reminds INSEE. However, analysis of past schemes of the same type shows that in the absence of this measure, employers would undoubtedly have paid, in a different form, at least part of the amount of the bonus to their employees.

About 30% of this bonus would have replaced the basic monthly salary

During the INSEE press conference, Julien Pouget, head of the business cycle department, delivers another element of analysis: With regard to the basic monthly salary, the one whose changes will condition longer-term grew less in Q4 2022 than it might have grown without the PPV. Implied: the increases in the fixed monthly net salary could have been greater.

About 30% of this bonus would have replaced the basic monthly salary, continues Julien Pouget. To achieve this result, we made the difference with what the base salary should have been [et ce qui a effectivement t vers]. Julien Pouget nevertheless qualifies the impact on the fixed salary: Be careful, it could replace other parts of the salary, such as a variable part for example.

Will your Macron bonus deprive you of a salary increase?