The poverty rate stood at 14.5% of the population in 2021 in France, up 0.9 points compared to the previous year due in particular to the increase in inflation, indicated the Insee Tuesday. In 2021, 9.1 million people were in a situation of monetary poverty in France, that is to say they had monthly income below the poverty threshold, set at 60% of the median income, or 1,158 euros. for a single person, details the National Institute of Statistics.
The poverty rate increased because the poorest households were penalized by the “non-renewal of exceptional solidarity aid” put in place by the government at the height of the Covid crisis in 2020, as well as by the increase in inflation.
“Many allowances are indexed to inflation but there is a period during which inflation is present without the revaluation and during which low-income households are penalized,” Jean-Luc Tavernier, general director, told AFP. of INSEE.
“It returns to the level of previous years”
Inflation increased from 0.5% in 2020 to 1.6% in 2021. Poverty also intensified, from 18.7% in 2020 to 20.2% in 2021. This indicator measures the gap between the median standard of living of the poor population and the poverty line. “It is returning to the level of previous years,” said Tavernier.
Regarding inequalities, no “explosion” according to him, but certain indices, which are rising sharply, are “at the highest levels reached in the last twenty years”. Some data differ from those presented so far by INSEE, which notably estimated that the poverty rate remained stable in 2020, around 14.5%. The organization does not now rule out that this rate could have fallen from 14.3% in 2019 to 13.6%.
The evolution between 2019 and 2020 remains uncertain “due to the particular collection conditions of surveys in 2020”, explains INSEE. The institute, however, assures that France emerged from the health crisis in 2021 “with a poverty rate higher than that which it had when it entered it”.