The only question that seems to have been to be asked so far about active solidarity income (RSA) concerns the calendar of its generalization and the thickness of the budget envelope which will be allocated to it. In reality, the RSA Pose many other problems that call for a fundamental discussion. With this first article by Dominique Méda, Laviedesidees.fr opens the debate and will continue it in the coming weeks by mobilizing economists, historians and sociologists.
The active solidarity income whose experimentation and then generalization are listed on the government’s program seems to be unanimous. The idea of granting a monetary service to the beneficiaries of social minima who find a job so as to “ interest Even more at work is an idea, on paper, quite consensual. There are still several ways to decline the implementation and, here as elsewhere, the quality of a policy is measured by the lucidity of decision -makers on the practical conditions of its success. Concerning the RSAit is not certain that these conditions were sufficiently explored.
Indeed, we have done so far as if the RSA would be enough to solve the problems linked to the confinement of beneficiaries of social minima in non -employment or low periods of employment. In reality, things are much more complicated. THE RSA is undoubtedly necessary. But it cannot be sufficient in any way. This has just strengthened the last delivery of the number of Research and forecast devoted to beneficiaries of social minima.
What do we see ? That most of the problems which prevent the resumption of employment of beneficiaries of social minima are not monetary (some work by losing money !) But come out of many other constraints: constraints “ family “, Due in particular to the lack of childcare methods offered to the recipients of the isolated parent allowance (60% declare that they know difficulties in their job search process because they and more often they cannot keep their child), health constraints, transport constraints, lack of support towards and in employment … In short, it is wrong to imagine that they prefer not to work simply because the work would not bring them enough. As Céline Marc points out, they are less than 1 % of beneficiaries who invoke such a lack of financial profitability of work as an obstacle to the return to employment.
Several studies have also highlighted that the individuals targeted are less calculating than imagined many current officials. People who resume a job have not all understood the mechanism of profit -sharing. It is often even after starting to work that they realize whether or not they lose money. All this clearly leads to the pure effect of monetary incentive on the behavior of social minima beneficiaries.
Unlike what is happening in the Nordic countries or in the United Kingdom, where they are either classified unfit for work or accompanied in their job search, beneficiaries of French social minimum are not systematically registered as job seekers and therefore do not benefit from the services of theAnpe. Less than 35% of RMISTES are registered in theAnpe And even if conventions have been most often signed, following the decentralization of Rmi in 2003, between the general councils and theAnpethe number of people concerned remains low.
The choice that the government is today confronted with is therefore not only whether or not to implement a monetary service supposed to encourage the beneficiaries of social minima to resume the way to work. It is above all today a question of setting up the means which will allow these people to overcome the constraints they face and which prevent them from finding a job. The solutions are clearly deduced from the work mentioned above: implementing a real public service for early childhood-which should undoubtedly be primarily devoted to resolving the care problems of social minimum beneficiaries then quickly concern all parents of young children- ; develop workstations likely to accommodate people with health problems ; benefit the beneficiaries not registered in theAnpe And likely to work, personalized services, and undoubtedly in part reinforced, of it, including heavy training services. This also means to achieve the most distant RMIStes from employment, by avoiding the effect of selection and sorting well known to job policies which most often leads the most employable persons to benefit preferentially from the means made available by the Public Service of Employment.
This requires accepting an increase in the number of people identified as a job seekers and devoting the human resources necessary to strengthen the capacity of action of the new operator from the merger of the mergerAnpe andOneic. It is at this price – and at this price only – that we can hope that the sums devoted to RSA will fully produce their effect, provided that one is able to avoid, then, a confinement of the beneficiaries of the RSA in very low use periods.
Would it not be very useful, at this precise moment when decisions are not yet taken and when the experimental phase continues, to compare all the costs generated by this reform to that of a new labor market regulation aimed at avoiding the multiplication of very short part-time positions, low wages generators called to be permanently completed by the public power and the precious resources ? The way in which the reception of young children is organized in the Nordic countries (local services employing stable staff) and in France (hiring of over -the -counter on very short part -time) constitutes from this point of view a very fruitful object of reflection.
THE RSA can therefore only be virtuous if it is inscribed in a set of social policies capable of lifting all the obstacles to the resumption of a job. If it were to be set up alone, a fortiori In a narrow budgetary framework, several consequences should be feared. The first and the easiest way would be that it ultimately affects only meager fraction of the public of social minima ; We would then have made a lot of noise for not much and the level of poverty in our country would hardly be modified. The second would certainly relate to social representations: far from stemming poverty, a RSA Little effective would confirm a lot about the idea that, decidedly, the poor have a bit in hand. He would then parachiale the historical suspicion movement which has taken hold of opinion for several years. Because it is the very idea that we have of poverty that basically structures this debate. Are the poor just poor money ? Or are they also social resources, information, training … ? By contenting yourself with the first position, there is a risk of making a heavy error.