2023-10-30 05:39:00
During the PS summer universities, President Paul Magnette declared that the abolition of the status of cohabitant would be one of the main fights carried out by the socialists during this campaign. This plan began to materialize in the federal parliament where Ahmed Laaouej’s team tabled a bill serving this purpose. Their text aims to eliminate the rate of cohabitants in the different branches of social security.
Noting that the amount of social benefits is not calculated according to each person’s personal situation, but according to their family situation, the PS writes that “this rate remains a source of inequality for very many people”. He adds that the current social security system impoverishes cohabiting women “to the extent that the majority of them are cohabiting when they receive social benefits”. The deletion would make it possible to align the allowances of cohabiting people with the allowances of single people.
The PS is joined on this idea by Ecolo. “This has been a historic demand of women and Ecolo for many years. For us, it was obvious that equality between men and women also required the individualization of rights,” indicates Cécile Cornet. The president of the Equal Opportunities Commission, however, is surprised that the PS is promoting the idea that they are the only ones to defend this program. “It’s an organized solitude. They did not propose to the other parties to co-sign their text, despite the fact that we affirmed our support for this proposal.”
The MR, on the other hand, is not at all of the same opinion. He even promises to block this proposal. “It’s madness,” says Florence Reuter, federal deputy and mayor of Waterloo. “It is above all a big electoral argument. The PS wants to allow a person who, for example, lives with their husband and child, to earn the same amount of benefits as a single person. But this calculation does not take into account the fact that these people share the costs of housing. It costs more to live alone than with others.”
The Court of Auditors estimated that the cost of this measure would rise to 1.867 billion euros, “which represents an amount that is certainly significant, but totally financeable in view of the societal issues”, considers the PS. “It’s important, but it’s not a disproportionate effort either,” opines Louis Mariage, Ecolo MP.
“Given the state of our finances, it is absolutely unsustainable”, rejects Florence Reuter, who considers this cost underestimated “since it will have lots of collateral effects”. “This measure will have a huge financial impact in the municipalities, in the CPAS… This is not at all trivial. The social partners will never be able to agree. There will never be an agreement on this. It’s a stillborn project.”
”This may be subject to arbitration. We can give ourselves margins to get there. It’s part of what we want as a societal choice. It’s a huge sum, but all measures that move society towards more solidarity have a cost,” reframes Cécile Cornet (Ecolo). “Moreover, the real cost would be below a billion and a half because we recover 300 million in taxes to which we must add the return effects on housing and health.”
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This will not encourage low income people to go to work. We already have a big job trap problem in Belgium. It costs almost more to go to work than to remain unemployed.
Florence Reuter considers the arguments according to which the abolition of the status would allow women to escape precariousness to be completely inadmissible. “It makes me crazy, it’s unbearable. This will mean that women will no longer want to work. This will not encourage low income people to go to work. We already have a big job trap problem in Belgium. It costs almost more to go to work than to remain unemployed. The PS proposes upward harmonization. But if you do that, you’re already breaking the budget, but what’s more, you’re not going to encourage people to earn more. This is why it is simply impossible for the MR to support this bill.”
The liberal, however, says she is open to discussing the principle, but on the condition that the discussion is without taboos and that it concerns a total revision of the social security system.
Certainly, the next debates on this theme promise to be heated.
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