Are you one of the wealthiest or least fortunate French people? INSEE has just updated its data on the median standard of living and the poverty threshold.
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– Find out where you stand on the income scale.
If the French were divided into two categories according to their income, would you be part of the richest half or the least rich? This is the question answered by INSEE in the 2024 edition of its study “Household income and wealth”, presented Thursday October 17. According to the latter, which is based on data from 2022, the median standard of living is 2,028 euros per month*, or 24,330 euros per year. In other words, half of French people earn less than 2,028 euros per month, and the other half more.
A poverty threshold set at 1,216 euros per month
Updating this median standard of living also allows INSEE to update the poverty threshold, that is to say the level of net income at which a person can be considered poor. The poverty line corresponds to 60% of median income. Thus, people earning less than 1,216 euros per month (or 2,554 euros, for example, for a couple with two children under 14) are poor within the meaning of INSEE. Which represented 14.4% of French people in 2022, i.e. 9.1 million people. A proportion which has increased significantly over the last 20 years, notes INSEE: in 2004, the poverty rate was 12.4%.
However, not all social or professional categories are exposed to the same extent to the risk of poverty. According to INSEE, people in a situation of monetary poverty are found in a greater proportion among the unemployed (35.3%), single-parent families (31.4%), couples with three or more children (24.6% ) and children under 18 (20.4%). Finally, by dividing the French population into 10, still according to the standard of living, INSEE notes that the gap between the richest and the most modest has narrowed very slightly over one year: in 2022, the French who entered the The wealthiest 10% earned 3.39 times more than those located in the upper limit of the most modest 10% (compared to 3.41 times more in 2021).
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*The calculation of the standard of living only takes into account people living in “ordinary” housing, that is to say not living in a community (Ehpad, university campuses, etc.)
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