Inflation check, Christmas bonus: the payment schedule – The HuffPost

Bernadett Szabo / Reuters

CONSUMPTION – In this period of buying Christmas gifts and at the end of a year marked by the Covid and an high inflation, the French wallet is in dire need of support. And precisely, from this month of December, several financial nudges may be collected by some households.

Exceptional aid, annualized schemes or government incentives, The HuffPost takes stock of the payment schedule for these various bonuses and their beneficiaries.

• The inflation allowance

From this Monday, December 13, some French people will start to touch the “inflation” allowance announced in October by the head of government Jean Castex. According to Matignon, it must concern 38 million French people, including a large majority of retirees and about half of the working population.

But this Monday, it is primarily the scholarship students who will benefit, as announced this Sunday, December 12 the Minister of the Budget Olivier Dussopt. And the payment will continue until the end of February for retirees.

Until then, companies “which can” are invited to pay the 100 euros to their employees from the end of December. They will then be reimbursed by the State via credits on their contributions. Public employees will receive them “at the latest” in January, added the minister, when home employees will be paid by Urssaf on December 20.

Finally, this tax-free bonus for French people earning less than 2,000 euros net per month will be paid out for the self-employed and micro-entrepreneurs and in February for artist-authors.

The second device has become customary. This is the Christmas bonus, the amount of which has not changed for twelve years and which has existed since 1998 and the government of Lionel Jospin. From at least 152.45 euros for a single person, this “boost before the end of year holidays” will be paid on December 15 to “2.3 million low-income households”, announced on December 8 on Ministry of Solidarity.

French people benefiting from certain social minima are concerned, such as the active solidarity income (RSA), the specific solidarity allowance (ASS) and the retirement equivalent allowance (AER). And the premium is paid automatically by the family allowance funds (CAF) or Mutualité sociale agricole (MSA), without the beneficiaries having to take any action.

In detail, and as since 2009, the amount of the premium is 152.45 euros for a single person, 228.67 euros for a two-person household (couple without children, single adult with one child) and 274 , 41 euros for three people (couple with one child, single adult with two children). Then, from four people, the amount of the premium is higher for a single-parent household (335.39 euros) than for a couple with two children (320.14 euros) and the premium is supplemented by 60.98 euros per additional child.

Created at the time yellow vests and renewed in 2020 due to the health crisis, the following system is for its part conditioned to the goodwill of the employer. This is indeed the so-called “Macron premium”, which allows companies to pay up to 2,000 euros exempt from tax and social contributions.

This bonus is intended for employees who earn less than three times the minimum wage or approximately 4768.41 euros gross (3×1589) and was created to encourage consumption as its full name suggests (exceptional purchasing power premium, or Pepa).

Finally comes the energy check, which has been added this year a supplement of 100 euros, valid for all beneficiaries and which will be sent in December. The check is addressed to 5.8 million households and cannot be cashed in the bank, but only used to settle a bill directly with the energy supplier or to finance energy efficiency work

About six million households can benefit from it, depending on their tax income and consumption, for an amount of 48 to 277 euros depending on the situation of the concerned. In 2021, it was sent in April to the beneficiaries, who will therefore all be entitled to the extension of this end of the year.

This additional 100 euros “will be sent between December 13 and December 17, 2021 to residents of most regions, between December 20 and 22, 2021 for beneficiaries from the regions of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie and Provence-Alpes-Côte. d’Azur (PACA) ”, can we read on the “Public Service” site.

See also on the HuffPost: Why the “fuel check” is not easy to set up