Testing thresholds: social assistance, France, 2007–08

Abstract

Chapter 6 presents the reform process of the RSA (‘Income of active solidarity’) in replacing the existing French system for the uninsured unemployed which had been in place since 1988. The reform process was launched at the end of 2007 and adopted at the end of 2008 once the financial crisis started to reach across the Atlantic. RSA entailed a negative tax scheme to increase incentives for recipients to take low-paid part-time work, while also introducing a number of instruments and obligations with the aim of increasing the mobility of the unemployed. The result was a displacement of the compromise of the previous scheme and a radical requalification of the relation between poverty and work.