This is not an illusion: your purchasing power has declined significantly in recent years. The losses were even measured during an investigation.
No, it’s not a feeling but a reality: the French have less money for their daily lives. And it’s INSEE that says it! The very serious statistics institute revealed that the average net salary saw a drop of 1% between 2021 and 2022, marking the most significant decline in the last 25 years.
This trend can be explained simply: on average, salaries increased by 4.2%. However, this increase is much lower than that of inflation: it was 5.2% for the year 2022. Daily prices have therefore increased much faster than income!
A concrete example illustrates this reality: that of the employee who earned €2,012 net per month in 2021, i.e. the median salary (50% of employees earn more, 50% earn less). In 2022, after a 4% increase, his salary increased to €2,091 net.
However, taking into account inflation (5.2%), his salary was equivalent to €1,982. Between 2021 and 2022, the employee therefore lost €30 of purchasing power per month, or €360 over the year, because their salary did not increase as sharply as daily prices (food, energy, etc.). ).
A decrease which follows a first decrease. Between 2020 and 2021, the worker paid the median salary (€2005 in 2020) saw its increase be lower than the increase in prices. Direct consequence: €300 less in the bank account in one year.
For employees paid the minimum wage, the State has carried out several increases in this minimum wage. In total, the various successive increases have always helped cushion the shock of rising prices. The overall increase being at the level of inflation, this therefore did not lead to any loss of purchasing power for the most precarious workers.
It should also be noted that this income from wages is supplemented, for some French people, by social benefits. In 2022, they were revalued at the level of inflation. Here again, no loss of purchasing power, therefore. Furthermore, the study does not measure the evolution of certain income from which other employees benefit, in particular income from assets linked to rental income for example.
Concerning public employees, INSEE has not yet published a detailed study. However, the government announced that between 2021 and 2022, the salaries of civil servants had increased, on average, by 1.5% through individual increases, before an increase in the index point on 1er July by 3.5%, without retroactivity to 1er January. If this had made it possible to compensate for inflation in the second part of the year, civil servants automatically lost money that year. Them too.