2018
Cairn
Sylvain Chareyron, « Poverty and non-take-up of social assistance: Evidence from the French basic income », Économie & prévision, ID : 10670/1.06087c...
In this paper, we focus on non-take-up of the French RSA (basic income support) scheme, which has not been widely studied to date. First, we estimate the rate of non-take-up by taking account of possible reporting and measurement inaccuracies. Our findings confirm a substantial rate of non-take-up: between 28% and 35% of eligible households fail to make claims under the program. Second, we investigate the determinants of non-take-up. We show that there is a high rate of non-take-up among very low income households. This result seems to be explained by the absence of prior contact between the poorest households and the administration. The rate of non-take-up is also high among less vulnerable households, which are closer to the labour market and would derive lower utility from claims under the program.