L'inéquité des minima sociaux. Le niveau de vie selon la composition des ménages

The Inequity of Poverty Lines. The Standard of Living by Household
Even though the GNP per capita of the members of the EU is among the highest in the world, it had, according to Eurostat, 7 million poor people in 1993. Their proportion relative to the total population may vary from 5% in Denmark to 18% in Greece and Portugal with some 10% in France. All these countries have adopted various measures intended to guarantee the poorest a minimum standard geared to ensure at least their most basic needs. This article by Jacques Bichot and Dominique Marcilhacy describe these minimum standards in France while showing the maze resulting from the layering of measures adopted one after the other without any harmonization.
The authors then undertake a comparison of the standard of living of the households dependent on these minima according to their status: single, couple with or without children, broken down by the age of the children. They can show that the present legislation is paradoxically biased in favour of singles to the detriment of families, especially those who have several children, the more so with teenagers. They strongly denounce this penalization of families which grows with the number of children. They argue in favour on the one hand for the simplification of the current measures and on the other hand for greater equity between households, whatever their statuses.