WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL CA #338 - At what income level are we rich or poor? and other economic news (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Oxfam highlights the gap between the richest of the richest and the

rest. This gives spectacular figures, but it does not replace a slightly
more detailed analysis. To produce their figures, they must aggregate
heterogeneous data, which are often not compatible with each other. They
therefore have to do "cooking", which is not always explained. This is
why you have to take their figures with a grain of salt, and you will
find some conditionals in this brief. Especially when we know that the
wealth of the richest is the least known (shell companies, tax havens,
tax loopholes, etc.)
According to the Swiss bank UBS, the fortune of Bernard Arnault's family
(LVMH, Les Echos, Le Parisien, etc.) more than doubled from 2020 to
2023, that of the Bettencourt family (L'Oreal) increased by 62%, that of
Wertheimer brothers (Chanel, Bourjois, but not only) by 71%. These are
the 4 richest French billionaires. During this time, the fortune of 90%
of French people would have fallen by 3.9%, that of the lowest 30% by
15%. According to the OECD, real wages (deducting inflation) in the
private sector fell by 1.8% from the 1st quarter of 2022 to the 1st
quarter of 2023.
Of course, billionaires take advantage of this to increase their power.
Already, by getting hold of the media: Bolloré (Canal+, Cnews, Havas,
Lagardère, Paris Match, JDD whose strike hit the headlines), Bernard
Arnault (Classic Radio, Les Echos, le Parisien). This allows them to
influence public opinion in the direction that interests them. Bolloré
in particular is actively working to unite the right and the extreme
right. They also cultivate networks of personal relationships: under
Macron the back and forth between positions of advisors to the president
or members of ministerial cabinets and senior leaders of these groups
are particularly frequent. In particular, they negotiated tax policy
well. As a percentage of their income, the poorest 10% would pay more
taxes than the richest 10%. This is explained in particular by the fact
that for the richest of the richest, their main income is dividends,
which benefit from numerous tax loopholes so as not to harm businesses.
According to Oxfam, since 2020, the five richest men in the world have
more than doubled their fortune. Over the same period, the cumulative
wealth of 60% of humanity has declined. Between 1995 and 2015, 60
pharmaceutical companies merged to form only 10 global giants, "Big
Pharma". Two international companies now hold more than 40% of the
global seed market. As monopoly power has allowed large companies in
many concentrated sectors to implicitly coordinate to raise their prices
to increase their margins since 2021, the energy, food and
pharmaceutical sectors have thus experienced enormous price increases.
Source: Oxfam, Big Fortunes, Small Arrangements; Multinationals and
multiple inequalities.

If we define the working classes as the most modest 30%, the wealthy
classes as the best-paid 20% (the remaining half would be the middle
classes), a single person belongs to the working classes if he or she
earns less of 1530 euros per month, is easy if he earns more than 2787
euros (admire the precision!). For a single person with their child, it
would be 1989 euros and 3623 euros respectively. For a couple, 2295
euros and 4180. For a couple with a child, 2754 euros and 5016 euros. If
we define a wealth threshold as double the median income, that would
give a rich single person starting at 3,860 euros, a rich couple without
children at 5,790 euros, and a couple with a child at 6,948 euros.
Source: Observatory of Inequalities, Poor, middle or rich? Income by
household type, January 2024

We can define poverty by income (poverty threshold, the level of which
is also subject to controversy), but we can also define it by shortages.
It doesn't necessarily amount to the same thing, contrary to what you
might think from a distance. INSEE asks thirteen questions such as "do
you have unpaid monthly loan payments, rent or bills?» or "can't you
keep your home at the right temperature due to lack of financial means?"
". A household is considered to be in a situation of deprivation if it
answers "yes" in at least five cases out of the thirteen, which was the
case for 14% of them in 2022. 30% of the population believes that they
could not face an unexpected expense of 1000 euros. A quarter of the
population says they cannot afford to replace a piece of furniture that
is out of order or to go on vacation for one week a year. 10% of the
population says they are depriving themselves of basic elements, such as
heating their home sufficiently, buying new clothes or being able to pay
their rent or bills on time. Comparisons over time are difficult because
the questions evolve. For example, INSEE removed from the questionnaire
the fact of owning a refrigerator, a television and a telephone "because
their excessive frequency in the population did not make them relevant
for defining a state of material deprivation".
Source: Observatory of Inequalities, September 18, 2023

In 2017, half of households (people occupying the same dwelling)
provided financial assistance to another household in the last two
months. In 93% of cases, this is assistance between members of the same
family living separately. It can be either money or the covering of
certain expenses. This still represented an amount of 37.7 billion euros
for 2017. It is mainly help from ascendants to descendants. Those under
40 receive 60%, first from parents aged 40 to 59, then from parents or
grandparents aged 60 or over. The latter can also be helped by their
descendants. We call those aged 40-59 the "pivot generation" because
they give much more than they receive. But retirees also help their
families, more than the average working person. Logically, it is the
most modest who receive the most financial help from those around them,
mainly students, apprentices or looking for their first job.
We are bombarded with a liberal discourse such as let's lower pensions
to favor young people (I'm a bit of a caricature), which pits one
situation against another. But we actually live in a society. If the
standard of living of retirees falls, which is the aim of all past and
probably future reforms, it will have much broader repercussions on all
generations.
Source: Insee focus n°319, January 2024

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