GenerationLibre wishes that every French citizen, provided with a personal contribution account, be able to retire when he wishes to do so.
The current French pension system is deeply unfair but also unable to meet the challenge of population aging.
The new universal pension system thought by GenerationLibre radically shifts the logic. The current statutory retirement age and the requirement for a minimum length of contribution are abrogated. Each participant in the system would be able to retire at its own convenience.
The pension amount is calculated dividing the total sum of cumulated individual contributions by the remaining life expectancy at the time of rights’ activation.
The new pension system suggested by GenerationLibre performs the best combination of two worlds : the stability of a state-run scheme coupled with a fair capitalization of the retirement rights individually collected.
To secure the system’s financial balance, the pensions’ amount distributed each year can’t exceed the contributions’ sum provisioned over the same year.
An intragenerational redistribution ensures a basic and minimal income to all pensioners.
Several options are outlined to meet the particularities of specific professional and individual career paths. Painful working conditions, for example, are taken into account by a mechanism of excess contributions funded by the employer so that involved employees can retire earlier or benefit from a higher pension.
GenerationLibre, working with MPs and associations, started a petition on Change.org to call for the French government to launch a ‘socle citoyen’, a form of universal basic income inspired by our work.
The joint initiative of MP Valérie Petit, the philosopher Gaspard Koenig and Marc de Basquiat, economist and GenerationLibre expert, has received the political support of some forty-five MPs and a wide range of leading CEOs, academics, journalists and associations.
The ‘socle citoyen’ would be easy to establish after the recent reform allowing tax to be deducted at source in France. Thus, the tax administration would now been able to calculate the difference between an individual tax credit (i.e. a given sum of money received by everyone at the beginning of each month) and a flat income tax from the first euro earned.
Financial simulations of our universal basic income proposal demonstrate that such a format could be implemented without any ripple effect, either on public finances or social transfers. By means of a single package that would combine individual tax credit and a flat income tax from the first euro earned, the French welfare system would be significantly simplified.
The ‘socle citoyen’ is not a progressive or conservative policy: it belongs to all those who believe in mankind.
Far from encouraging idleness, the ‘socle citoyen’ protects the dignity of the most deprived individuals by sparing them intrusive administrative procedures and by treating them like citizen empowered with equal rights instead of marginalized people. The ‘socle citoyen’ also fosters risk-taking by offering the guarantee of never slipping into extreme poverty and by removing poverty traps since it ensures that work always pays off. It also helps each one of us to make the best use of our skills and aspirations.
Far from dismantling the welfare state, the ‘socle citoyen’ complements universal provisions (healthcare, childcare), insurance mechanisms (retirement, unemployment benefits) and other specific transfers (accommodation, disability support…) with a modern and stable safety net.
Among all the existing UBI proposals, the one put forward by GenerationLibre is both modest, since it aims to cover only basic needs, and pragmatic, since it could be achieved without disrupting the French economy.
The publication of our report “LIBER, an income of freedom for all” contributed to the launch of a nation-wide debate on basic income in France. As evidenced by the information report presented by the Senate on October 19, 2016, entitled “Basic income in France, from utopia to experimentation”, this debate has reached our public institutions.
Many questions continue to arise. To answer them, we have published here a follow-up of our work which explains the intellectual foundations of the UBI and outlines the technical details of this necessary reform.
According to our model, the introduction of this form of UBI does not modify the tax burden and replicates the current fiscal redistribution pattern.
We outline in this new report a path of reforms which could guide public decision-makers towards a progressive UBI implementation.
As more ideas, initiatives, and experiments multiply around the world, an in-depth discussion on the principles and practicalities of a UBI should eventually take place at the heart of the French political debate.
Today, the French state doesn’t fulfill its legitimate task to ensure that members of the same society have the means to survive.
France is losing the fight against poverty despite some 400 billion euros of social spending every year. It is time to replace our inefficient and unfair social system with a new mechanism.
We want to give every individual a fundamental security so that it can fully enjoy its freedom and make its own choices. We want to implement a universal basic income called LIBER which takes the form of a tax credit, calculated so that everyone can meet their basic needs.
Who can seriously be satisfied with the French social system, this maze of taxes and benefits built randomly over the past decades by what has become an obese, paternalistic and bureaucratic state ? We want an entirely different system.
Our LIBER proposal is financed by an income tax paid on the first euro earned: the LIBERTAXE. This new system makes it possible to tackle poverty effectively because the amount is calculated on the sole criterion of income, and replaces the maze of all the conditional allowances.
The proposal outlined by GenerationLibre avoids paternalism by making citizens responsible for their own choices. It also encourages work since the amounts received in the form of a negative tax decrease in a perfectly linear way as income grows.
Every year, the French government changes its policy towards families while avoiding a necessary debate on the principles underlying it.
The multiple state subsidies granted to families are questionable. It’s especially true for a special tax privilege called « household quotient » which benefits wealthy families at the expense of less well-off families.
Another oddity of our system is that subsidies go up for the third child, as if a parents’ choices for a third child would be made based purely on financial incentives.
Rather than constantly changing the family policy, it would be more useful to question its legitimacy.
The correlation between family allowances and birth rates have already been refuted by many researchers. The French system maintains very low levels of support for middle-class families with a single child, contrary to what most other countries do.
We want to reverse the current logic of this system. Instead of financing the family with the aim of maintaining its pre-birth standard of living, the child should get financial help via its parents to guarantee for him a minimum level of education.
We suggest to introduce a single allowance per child, defined according to the needs of the child rather than the standard of living of the family.
