POLITICS – Major issue on the fire. Intriguing passage of the transfer of power between Gabriel Attal and Michel Barnier at Matignon, the evocation of several issues ” on the desk ” of the new Prime Minister was somewhat clarified this Friday, September 6.
Michel Barnier Prime Minister: these files that Gabriel Attal left to the new tenant of Matignon
Among the issues left pending with the dissolution of the National Assembly, Gabriel Attal entrusted the new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who has made purchasing power one of his priorities, with a proposal for “ “de-micardize” France. A measure which plans to review the system of exemptions from social security contributions, AFP learned from an outgoing government advisor.
And “system with a unique relief”
This is a “structural overhaul” of these exemptions which today concern salaries up to 3.5 times the minimum wage, this advisor to Matignon told AFP, confirming information from EchoesThese exemptions, maximum at the level of the minimum wage, introduced to support employment, are today accused by certain economists of slowing down wage growth by creating “Low-wage traps”.
Today, the system is made up of a stack of three devices: a general reduction in contributions, strongly degressive up to 1.6 times the minimum wage, a reduction of 6 percentage points in health contributions (the “disease banner”) up to 2.5 times the minimum wage and a reduction of 1.8 points on family contributions (“family banner”).
The path chosen by the outgoing Prime Minister, on the basis of a report given to him by economists Antoine Bozio and Étienne Wasmer, is to “recreate a system with a unique relief” and no longer these three devices. It would be “degressive”which would avoid threshold effects and stop “at three minimum wages” (instead of 3.5 currently).
No additional cost to public finances
Today, increasing the net salary of an employee paid 2,000 euros gross by 100 euros costs the employer nearly 500 euros. In the new system, the total cost to the company would be more like 350 euros.
Last year, PS deputies Jérôme Guedj and Renaissance Marc Ferracci proposed removing the exemption for salaries above 2.5 times the minimum wage, but this option was not retained because it would have been penalizing for industry and foreign trade, according to this advisor to the outgoing executive.
In the proposal accepted, while removing the reductions between 3 and 3.5 times the minimum wage, “Employers are winners” for salaries below 3 times the minimum wage, because “This increases the mass of reliefs at this level”the same source specifies. The option, if retained by the Barnier government, would not represent an additional cost for public finances in 2025, the overall volume of exemptions from employer contributions remaining around 80 billion euros. It could be integrated into the next draft social security finance bill (PLFSS).
Also see on Le HuffPost :
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