“The energy check is today threatened by a government reform putting an end to its automatic payment”

EAutomatically sent each year to the mailboxes of the 5.5 million poorest households, the energy check is essential assistance in paying energy bills. Already largely insufficient in relation to needs, this system is today threatened by a reform which would put an end to its automatic payment. This government arbitration, announced discreetly as part of the finance bill for 2025, runs the risk of a worsening of energy poverty from next year.

While waiting for the eradication of energy sieves, millions of precarious households are going broke to pay their energy bills or are suffering from the cold. For them, the energy check provides assistance with the bill, even if it is minimal: its amount – 150 euros per year on average – has not changed since 2019 and it does not cover the increase in energy prices . The resource ceilings to be eligible are also so low – below 11,000 euros per year for a single person, or around the poorest 10% – that many households in fuel poverty do not benefit from them.

With the end of the exceptional aid put in place during the energy crisis of 2022, the most precarious have become the ones forgotten by the government. However, the indicators are red. Nearly one in two people will struggle to pay their energy bills in 2024, compared to 32% in 2017; 26% of French people suffered from the cold in their homes in 2023, twice as many as in 2020. According to France Stratégie, more than ten thousand people die each winter because of the cold. Finally, the symbolic mark of one million interventions for unpaid energy bills was crossed in 2023 and 178,000 power cuts were suffered by households.

This unprecedented worsening of energy poverty should have sparked a surge on the part of the public authorities, in particular through the tripling of the amount of the check. Improving this aid targeted at the most precarious would cost ten times less than the tariff shield.

Overwhelming results

Unfortunately, quite the opposite is likely to happen. Despite repeated warnings from associations, the abolition of the housing tax prevents the tax services from identifying new households eligible for the energy check within a home. For lack of anything better, in 2024, the check was exceptionally sent to the same beneficiaries as the previous year. For a million new unidentified potential beneficiaries, an online platform had been opened but, unsurprisingly, very few have used it, since, to date, only 120,000 requests have been identified and 32,000 checks awarded, i.e. a recourse rate of 3% to 12%, far from the 84% energy check usage rate in 2023.

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