More than 4 million households benefit from the activity bonus, which in 2016 replaced the activity RSA and the employment bonus before being extended in early 2019 in the face of the yellow vests crisis. However, the number of beneficiaries could be much higher, even if it is currently impossible to quantify this non-recourse. The finance law for 2022 provides for a more in-depth analysis, the beginnings of possible automation.
Nearly 600,000 households eligible for the RSA do not claim it. And what about the activity bonus, RSA relay for low-income people despite gainful employment? The Dres (1) itself, the government’s statistical pillar in this area, cannot yet quantify this non-use of the activity bonus. But the number of low-income households forgetting to claim this monthly income is probably very high. This raises the question of automatic payment, promised by the government in 2019…
As of September 2021, 4.34 million households receive the activity bonus, according to Cnaf, the national family allowance fund. The average amount of this premium is 186.2 euros per month still according to the statistics of the CAF, charges for the payment of this premium. This monthly aid – distinguishable from active solidarity income (RSA), dedicated to households without financial resources – is the result of a complex calculation. This premium takes into account your monthly resources, the composition of the household, and a possible bonus depending on the level of income. CAF offers a online simulator. For a single person, it is necessary to receive less than 1800euros approximately, which corresponds 1.5 minimum wagethis threshold being so high for couples and families with children.
The activity bonus, relay of the RSA for low-income households
Here are the monthly RSA amounts (in blue) and the activity bonus (PA, in orange) based on the net monthly income of the beneficiary (here a single person).
A single person receiving 1,000 euros net per month thus receives a little over 200 euros in activity bonus per month.
Source: Dres.
How many households forget to claim the premium?
The first evaluation of the service thus suggested a rate of recourse exceeding 70% on average per quarter over the year 2016, notes the Cnaf, based on the figures of the DREES. A third of eligible households forget to claim the activity bonus when they are entitled to it? Or less? Or more? Reading the study of the Drees on the non-use of the RSA and the activity bonus, published on February 11, the number of households not claiming the bonus could be much higher. Because unlike the RSA, the DREES recognizes that it is currently unable to quantify precisely this non-use: additional data, currently unavailable, is still necessary to estimate the non-take-up of the activity bonus. And this while the study in question aimed to quantify this non-use. The DREES announces ongoing investigations.
The CNAF itself published in 2020 a qualitative study on the non-use of the activity bonus o it notes the importance of non-recourse for 3 reasons. The first: a ignorance of the activity bonus and a lack of information for those who do not ask for it from the start. The second: an absence of demand in the event ofback and forth in [l’ligibilit ] the activity bonus. The third cause is multiple, ranging from households with fluctuating and precarious incomes, for example, to those who give up in the face of the complexity of the procedures.
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This need to quantify the use and non-use of the activity bonus is not neutral. This is part of a possible automation of the payment of the activity bonus. Automatic payment would avoid these thousands or millions of omissions. And the government had promised to work on this subject at the beginning of 2019 following the crisis of the yellow islands.
The deputy LREM Patrice Anato has also succeeded in having an amendment voted on this subject in the 2022 budget. An amendment supposed to relaunch the automation process: to do this the government will have to submit to Parliament a report development of tools for automatic recovery of beneficiary declaration data activity bonus.
The amendment initially set September 1, 2022 for the submission of the report. This chance was pushed back a year, in the final text of the law: report to be delivered to Parliament by September 2023. This report will therefore be only a step towards further automation. In the explanatory memorandum to his amendment, Patrice Anato asserts that the automatic payment of the activity bonus would constitute significant progress in combating non-recourse and simplifying the procedures for households benefiting from this service. The soap opera is relaunched.
(1) Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES), under the supervision of the Ministries of Solidarity and Health, Labour, Employment and Integration, as well as that of Economy, Finance and Recovery.