The active solidarity income (RSA) insufficiently benefits the people for whom it is intended, estimates the Court of Audit, which in a report recommends simplifying the system and improving support for its beneficiaries. In 2020, 2.1 million beneficiaries received the RSA.
However, the rate of “non-use” of this service is “too high”, said Thursday at a press conference Pierre Moscovici, first president of the Court of Auditors. It has remained stable at around 30% since 2011. To improve it, the Court recommends in particular to “simplify” the payment of the allowance, by “improving all the tools, including teleprocedure, simulations and automation of the quarterly declaration ”.
“Poor results in terms of employment”
A flagship measure of the government’s anti-poverty strategy, the universal activity income planned to merge several social minima, including the RSA, to create a more efficient system, but the project was put on hold. RSA recipients benefit from “clearly insufficient social and professional support,” also noted Pierre Moscovici.
These “deficiencies in support hamper the integration process”, he noted, pointing to “mediocre results in terms of employment”. In total, 60% of beneficiaries do not have a valid support contract, according to the Court of Auditors. Seven years following entering the RSA scheme, only 34% of beneficiaries on average have a job.
The RSA makes it possible to avoid “falling into great poverty”
The Court of Auditors recommends in particular to “systematically offer registration in a training or employment path no later than two years following entering the system”. The RSA allows beneficiaries to avoid falling into great poverty, however welcomed the Court of Auditors. He also removed “inactivity traps”, with a monetary incentive to return to work.
The number of RSA beneficiaries has grown almost continuously since its creation. In 10 years, between 2009 and 2019, it increased by 46% (from 1.3 to 1.9 million). Public expenditure to finance the RSA reached 15 billion euros in 2019. According to the Court of Auditors, the increase in the number of beneficiaries has weakened the financing of the system, provided by the departments.
“Since 2009, a gap has continued to widen between the increase in revenue and that of expenditure remaining the responsibility of the departments, and this, in a very differentiated way according to the territories,” she points out in her report. She believes that the financing of the RSA should be reformed “by favoring the transfer to departments of sustainable resources whose dynamics are consistent with that of expenditure”.
