Poverty: concerns about the effectiveness of benefit increases

The government’s planned boost to help recipients of social benefits may not match the shock caused by runaway inflation, the pilot of poverty policy assessment work warned on Monday. . “There is a very strong impact of inflation on the real purchasing power of people living in poverty and I am not entirely reassured that the purchasing power law completely compensates for it”, worried Louis Schweitzer, chairman of the evaluation committee of the national strategy for the prevention and fight against poverty.

Currently being debated in the Assembly, the bill “on emergency measures for the protection of purchasing power” plans to increase by 4%, from July, a wide range of social benefits such as the active solidarity income, the allowance for disabled adults or the activity bonus.