Forms that were too complex to fill out, voluminous files to assemble, websites whose passwords had long been forgotten… At 62, Françoise had definitely drawn a line under any social assistance offered by the State. With her small salary as an order picker for a logistics platform, this Marseillaise had so far managed to “live”, without superfluous purchases and without excess. But with inflation, daily life has become more difficult to manage. The sexagenarian then tries to take an interest in this aid, to contact the family allowance fund (CAF) closest to her and to find out on the Internet. “But I never managed to get an appointment, they didn’t answer the phone. On government sites, I quickly felt lost,” says Françoise, who, in a final attempt, registers on the private platform Mes-allocs.fr.
Created in 2018, this site offers users the opportunity to simulate the social aid to which they are entitled for free, then to support them in setting up and updating their files for around thirty euros per quarter. The user then made an unexpected discovery: for years, her status allowed her to receive the activity bonus, for an amount of 120 euros per month. “In my situation, it’s considerable! But I didn’t even know of the existence of this allowance, which is neither automatic nor retroactive”.
Françoise is not the only one in this case. According a study carried out by the Mes-allocs.fr site and published in January 2022, 8.7 million French people over the age of 25 would be eligible for this aid, but 53% of them would not have used it. Ditto for housing aid, for which the non-recourse rate is 37%, the active solidarity income (RSA), not claimed by 35% of potential beneficiaries, the family support allowance (14%) , the disabled adult allowance (61%), or the disabled child allowance, which 85% of the parents concerned did not receive on January 1, 2022.
Even the energy checks, launched this winter by the government to try to help the French pay their heating bills and widely publicized, have not all been claimed: according to a survey carried out by the platform among 50,000 people a priori eligible, 32% of them did not know of the existence of this aid, and had therefore not benefited from it. Impressive figures, corroborated by a study of the Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) and the Observatory of non-recourse to rights and services published in March 2022, which confirms that 34% of households eligible for the RSA do not do not really benefit from it, or that the non-use of the solidarity allowance for the elderly (Aspa) currently concerns “one person in two alone”.
“Around 10 billion euros” of unclaimed aid
The amount of these unclaimed allowances is also spectacular: just for the minimum old age, the DREES estimates that non-recourse produces an annual saving of one billion euros for the State. The non-use of the RSA would represent him, three billion euros. It is difficult to calculate the exact amount of unemployment benefits not transferred to the bank accounts of the 540,000 beneficiaries who did not request them, or that of housing aid which 72% of student beneficiaries did not use, but all of the unpaid aid would represent “about 10 billion euros each year”, indicates Daniel Verger, responsible for labor issues and access to social benefits at Secours Catholique.
Via data from the association, which publishes each year a report on the state of poverty in France, it lists the different factors pushing users not to use their social assistance. People who live in precarious housing, for example, are four times more likely to find themselves in a situation of no recourse, as are foreign people (2.5 times more risk), single fathers (1 to 2 times more risk), French people who have recently fallen into a situation of poverty, following the loss of a job or a divorce for example (twice the risk), and single or isolated people (twice more risk).
“But we are not just talking about a lack of information or knowledge about these aids”, wishes to specify Daniel Verger. “There are also all the users who have tried to obtain them but have been blocked in their efforts due to administrative errors, digital difficulties, papers never sent or files lost… This is extremely common. The complexity of the procedure and the dematerialization have made life impossible for them”.
This is for example the case of Jean-Luc, who recently returned to settle in France after ten years in Canada. He recounts “the nameless galley” in which he and his wife were plunged upon their return to the territory. To benefit from the RSA, prepare for their retirement or apply for the activity bonus, the couple had to “fight”. “These are endless files, for which a document is always missing. Aid that is only released after long weeks, difficulties in reaching the services concerned, a terrible lack of coordination between these services … Compared to Canada, I really have the impression of living in an underdeveloped country at the administrative level”, retorts the fifty-year-old, who is trying somehow to disentangle himself in the administrative millefeuille of social assistance: “There there are those for whom it’s instinctive. But when you don’t know anything about it, you are clearly penalized”.
“Why deprive yourself of it?”
An analysis largely validated by Marc Mazière, founder of the Radin Malin site, which includes all kinds of tips for saving money. “There is a real break in equality between those who know how to benefit from aid, even how to optimize it, and the others”, explains this blogger who, unlike Françoise or Jean-Luc, knows perfectly the meanders of the French administration. “When I was a scholarship student, I looked for all the help possible: I benefited at the same time from the RSA, housing aid (APL), free transport subscription, and I even got funding my permit by Pôle Emploi. It represented around 700 euros in aid per month, and 1,200 euros for the permit. But you have to want it!”, He explains, remembering the two-page cover letter sent to Pôle Emploi to explain his situation.
Later, Marc does not hesitate to assert his rights to unemployment or the activity bonus, while calculating the real or supposed advantages of doing certain odd jobs. “It was not always worth it. For example, when I was a waiter 20 hours a week in thankless conditions, I only earned 100 euros more than by remaining unemployed… So I stopped”. A “questionable” choice according to some of his relatives, which the young man fully assumes. “I don’t understand the cliché of the ‘aid profiteer’, I don’t agree with this idea of assistance. If these allowances allow us to move forward, that we can benefit from them and that we don’t fall not illegally, why deprive yourself of it?”, he asks.
“My logic is to optimize the aid that the state offers to launch, in the long term, my own business. And when you’re smart, it’s not that difficult,” says Cédric. After having delegated the administrative tasks to his wife for years, this forties began to be interested in the various allowances after his divorce. By browsing the Internet, he first discovers his eligibility for the activity bonus, for an amount of 240 euros per month. “I was very surprised! I realized that I had given up certain rights for fear of administrative complexity… So I decided not to be fooled anymore”, says the father of the family, determined to launch his e-commerce business by taking advantage of assistance for the takeover or creation of a business (ARCE).
This allowance notably allows the user to receive in capital 45% of his unemployment benefits during the period of creation of his microenterprise: 50% of the sum is paid at the time of the request, and the remaining 50% six months later. Cédric did his calculations. “I should be able to benefit, at the same time, from the APL, the activity bonus, and the ARCE, which will allow me to get by during the creation of my project. But if I did not have sought by myself, I would have stayed on the sidelines”. According a DREES study published in April 2023, nearly four out of ten people consider that the lack of information on aid is the main cause of non-take-up. Nearly a quarter of French people also believe that the complexity of the procedures puts users off in their requests. No less than 16% also justify this phenomenon by the wish to “get by on their own without depending on social assistance”, or not to be considered as “recipient”.