New gifts to businesses, without compensation?
“A good economy means good wages, it’s fair remuneration. Salaries are too low today in our country. » Jordan Bardella proposes giving businesses the “freedom to increase salaries by 10% without employer contributions for five years, up to three times the minimum wage”i.e. up to salaries of 5,300 euros gross per month (the minimum wage amounts to 1,766.92 euros gross).
Subject to further clarification from the RN on this point, we therefore understand that companies which so wish could increase employees’ minimum wage by a maximum of 176 euros gross monthly, and employees earning three times the minimum wage, by 530 euros at least. maximum, and that this part of the salary would be exempt from employer contributions.
These additional reliefs may appear as new gifts to businesses, without compensation, while the exemptions already have a considerable cost for public finances: 73.6 billion euros, according to Urssaf.
You should know that the minimum wage is already almost exempt from contributions. The world had done the calculation on the minimum wage at the end of 2023: employer contributions were 56 euros for a minimum wage of 1,747 euros. Beyond that, three systems of exemption from contributions are already stacking up, the governments of the right and the left having lowered the cost of labor for the most modest categories: the “Fillon relief”, or drastic reduction of contributions on salaries between 1 time and 1.6 times the minimum wage, the reduction on health contributions up to 2.5 minimum wage, and that on family contributions up to 3.5 minimum wage.
At the end of the October social conference, the government had also asked two experts to discuss the perverse effects of these extremely complex exemption systems, costly for the community and which block the progression of wages, since any increase is accompanied by a reduction in exemption. The publication of the Bozio-Wasmer report was expected in June.
If the exemption proposed by Mr. Bardella were added to existing systems, it would possibly further complicate the equation.
Aline Leclerc
