Unemployment insurance: 17% of beneficiaries also receive the activity bonus or RSA, according to Unedic

“How many Unemployment Insurance beneficiaries receive the return to work assistance allowance (ARE) and the activity bonus? Can they also receive active solidarity income? What characterizes people who have multiple benefits? » It is this series of questions that Unedic attempted to answer with the second part of a series of studies that the public establishment is devoting to the connection between unemployment insurance and solidarity. With what objective? Give an overview of the “combination of ARE schemes, the specific solidarity allowance, the activity bonus and the RSA. »

As a reminder, social protection in France is based on two systems: social minimums and benefits, dependent on State services, and Unemployment Insurance, managed by Unedic. In this architecture, certain allowances, such as the activity bonus (PA), the specific solidarity allowance (ASS), and the active solidarity income (RSA), must remedy a loss of employment and help to find it again. another. If the RSA and the activity bonus can be paid simultaneously to the ARE, they can only be in addition to the amount paid by Unemployment Insurance.

First lesson from the study: among the 620,000 beneficiaries of the service managed by Unedic, 17% received the activity bonus and/or the RSA in 2022. 515,000 people received the activity bonus in addition to the ARE and their salary resumed. While a smaller proportion receive RSA and ARE simultaneously. Second point to note: almost half of Unemployment Insurance recipients work part-time. Those concerned then receive relative compensation as long as the job they have taken over still provides lower remuneration than what they received in their previous positions. This part of the beneficiaries can also claim the activity bonus.

Concerning the 102,000 people covered by Unemployment Insurance and who also benefit from RSA, they are eligible because they live in “a household with few resources and have a low benefit amount”. ASS beneficiaries, for their part, are older, and 68% are marked by a situation of lasting unemployment. They therefore obtained a long right to unemployment before switching later to ASS.

Finally, we note a difference in the persistence of these situations over time depending on the type of benefits paid. “If the payment of the ARE is limited in time because the individual who becomes unemployed is allocated a certain duration of rights based on his professional past, social and minimum benefits are not,” indicates the Public establishment. Adding: “ASS and RSA are more persistent over time than ARE.”