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Atlantico: This narrowing of the middle clbades affects all OECD countries, but France manages to curb the phenomenon for the most part. How to explain the difference between what is perceived in France and these data provided by the OECD? Should we see the result of the stagnation of the median income (base of the calculation of the% of middle clbades) over a period of 10 years, as indicated by INSEE?
Michel Ruimy : The middle clbad is, in France, still relatively important. The median annual income is around 21,500 euros, while it amounts to just over 16,000 euros in the European Union (The median income is the income that divides the population into two equal parts. that is, 50% of the population has an income above 21,500 euros and 50%, income below this amount). Its weight in the total population is higher than the OECD average (68% vs. 61%).
Yet, in our country, it provokes regular debates and controversies in the political, economic and sociological fields. Already, in 1988, the sociologist Henri Mendras spoke of "averénisation of the society" between 1965 and 1985. Thirty years later, the sociologist Louis Chauvel evoked the crumbling of this social category since the end of the "Thirty glorious" in his test "The spiral of decommissioning". Today, politically, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire explained that the crisis of "Vests yellow" came from a deep concern of the middle clbades face the risk of downgrading, the feeling of working without being sufficiently paid.
To understand the exasperation of this category, the international organization recalls that the proportion of French households reporting difficulties in making ends meet is higher than the average for OECD countries (52% versus 47%). This gap is even more spectacular for low-income households with a difference of 11 points between France and the rest of the countries (81% vs. 70%).
Despite the stagnation of the median wage over the past decade, the cost of spending has risen faster than inflation, which means that the economic influence of the increasingly insecure middle clbad and its role as the "economic center of gravity" has weakened. A situation, a potential source of political instability, can affect growth.
This report on the crash of the middle clbades is likely to resonate particularly in France, because of a context marked by the movement of "yellow vests", interpreted as the expression of a fed up of the middle clbad lower.
To what extent could this situation also be the result of the level of redistribution in France, which manages to correct the phenomenon, but while masking the fragility of French primary income growth, much more visible than redistribution?
Absolutely. It must be understood that without the redistribution effected by taxes and social benefits, France would be much more unequal than it is now.
The last delivery of "France, port social" of the INSEE, published at the end of last year, had opportunely recalled: before redistribution, the 10% of the poorest people had, in 2016, a Average annual living standards slightly higher than 3,000 euros against nearly 72,500 euros for the 10% most affluent, 24 times more. After redistribution, this ratio goes to 6! The poorest 10% see their standard of living climb to nearly 10,000 euros while that of the richest tenth, falls to about 55,000 euros.
The role of redistribution in reducing inequalities is thus decisive. Two-thirds of the effort to reduce inequality is due to social benefits. The importance of housing subsidies, social minima and the activity premium, because of their highly targeted nature, are effective because they contribute about 30% to the standard of living of the poorest 10%, whereas a quarter of this The reduction of inequalities is attributable to family benefits. As a tax levy, the income tax, because of its progressive nature, is the most redistributive. It accounts for almost 30% of the reduction in inequalities in living standards. Orders of magnitude that it is not useless to keep in mind in these times of budget scarcity …
Nevertheless, this redistribution hides, to a certain extent, the low level of primary income from activity. One of the reasons for this is the changing labor market, which has become polarized: intermediate jobs threatened by robotization are declining while the share of jobs requiring high skills is increasing. This means, on the one hand, that one has to become more and more qualified to belong to the middle clbad and on the other hand, that the workers occupying moderately skilled routine jobs are caught in a vice. Those who fail to increase their skills are likely to be relegated to low quality, low paid jobs.
Today, 1 out of 6 middle-income jobs are exposed to a high risk of automation in France. While there is no consensus on the impact of automation on the labor market, many jobs are expected to undergo transformations in the coming years. This phenomenon could increase the polarization of employment already at work in a large number of developed countries.
Can we not also see, through this phenomenon, a more negative perception of the situation by the population, by the share of expenditure constraints in household spending, including real estate?
Pre-committed expenses result from contractual commitments that are difficult to renegotiate in the short term. These include water, gas, electricity, telephone and internet subscriptions, school meals, some insurance, financial services … They now account for nearly 30% of against 20% in 1978.
If they weigh more and more, they alone are not enough to measure the pressure on the household budget. To this must be added the unavoidable expenses of food, clothing, transportation (automobile and rail) and health. Together all these consumer items account for just under 30% of income.
The set therefore accounts for about two thirds of the budget … on average, because there are deep disparities between social categories. It is clear that pre-engaged consumption represents a much higher share of consumption that the standard of living is low.The weight of some emblematic items of essential expenses are also also very dependent on living standards. This is, for example, the case of food that lighten considerably more one rises in the social ladder and remains very heavy for the less favored.
However, while in France the cost of medical care and education remains limited, most of the increase is due to the explosion in the cost of housing. Indeed, at the heart of this dynamic, loan repayments are not included, while it is probably the most constrained expenditure. Younger people have a much harder time becoming homeowners than their parents, and building up wealth.
In fact, the decline in purchasing power, the purchasing power freed from pre-committed and unavoidable expenses for the middle and lower clbades, is not a mistake of perception but a reality hence the extreme sensitivity part of the population to any price increase on certain expenses more suffered than desired.
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