Often working more doesn’t pay as well as hoped

2023-05-16 08:40:36

The potion can be bitter for the French who take up a job or invest to increase their salary. There are still situations where the financial gains from these efforts are largely cut short, economists point out, while the executive says it wants to support the “middle classes”.

“For a single employee whose remuneration would increase from 1.4 to 1.5 SMIC, only 26.8% of the gross increase obtained would be retained”, notes the economist Denis Ferrand, director general of the Rexecode institute, in a note dated 2022. The salary increase is indeed nibbled away by the increase in income tax and the reduction in the activity bonus, a social aid designed to support the most modest workers.