At least ten billion euros in social aid would not be claimed by their potential beneficiaries each year in France. A colossal sum but which remains abstract for the French. The website Mes-allocs.fr, which informs and supports Internet users in their procedures, has tried to determine the rate of non-use of the main aids (housing aid, active solidarity income, activity bonus, etc.). Using the method of cross-referencing available data – at national level and by department – to determine the potential number of beneficiaries and compare it to reality.
And the result is edifying. Because if certain aids show a fairly low rate of non-use (5% for example for the back-to-school allowance for households with 2 children), others are neglected. This is the case of the little-known disabled child education allowance (AEEH) with nearly 300,000 parents receiving benefits but a non-take-up rate estimated at 85%. It is not much better for the Disabled Adult Allowance (AAH) with a rate of 61%.
More or less cumbersome procedures
“Some aid, such as the RSA (35% non-use) or the activity bonus (53 %), for example, are subject to quarterly updating by the beneficiary of its resources with the Caf, explains Joseph Terzikhan, founder of Mes-Allocs.fr. It can be an obstacle. “ Conversely, other benefits such as the back-to-school allowance are automatically allocated on the income of the year N-2, which the Caf has thanks to the exchange of data with the tax authorities. The non-use can then only be explained by a Caf file that has not been updated or problems with bank details, for example.
But for the same aid, there are great disparities between departments. Thus, for the AAH, when Ain and Haute-Savoie show a non-use rate of 73%, it is only 39% in Aude or Lozère. “On the one hand, there is the level of equipment of each department in physical support structures, specifies Joseph Terzikhan. And on the other hand, some populations remain remote from digital: they do not find out regarding existing systems or do not take the necessary steps. »
Although the government has taken steps to simplify the allocation of aid, there is still a long way to go. For its part, Mes Allocs provides a free simulator to find out what aid you are entitled to. And if the administrative procedures put you off, the platform offers personalized support for 29.90 euros per quarter, without commitment. “We can do 90% of the steps,” says the founder of Mes-Allocs.fr. On average, the platform claims to recover 3,200 euros in aid per user and per year.
