The poverty rate remained stable, at 15.4% of the population, in 2024 in mainland France, the highest level ever measured, indicated Thursday INSEE, which also reported an increase in inequalities.
Concretely, this means that 9.8 million people were in a situation of monetary poverty in 2024, that is to say they had monthly income below the poverty threshold, set at 60% of the median income, or 1,337 euros for a single person, details the National Institute of Statistics.
Certainly, the living standards of the most modest have recovered “thanks to a situation on the labor market that is still fairly well oriented and to increases in the minimum wage, retirement pensions and social benefits while inflation is slowing,” explains INSEE. “But they are not increasing faster than living standards in the middle of the scale, which also benefit from some of these effects.”
A long-lasting record
The evolution of the bottom and the middle of the scale being similar, the poverty rate remains stable in 2024, at its highest level measured since the launch of this indicator in 1996. Between 2022 and 2023, it jumped by 0.9 points.
“Poverty remains at an unacceptable historic level and continues to take root,” lamented the Alerte collective in a press release. “Statistical stability is not a social victory”. This organization, which brings together 37 associations fighting against precariousness, calls in particular on the government to “make the eradication of extreme poverty a priority political objective”.
In 2024, inequalities have also increased in France to reach “a historically high level”, due to the increase in higher incomes, according to INSEE.
The profiles most affected by poverty remain the unemployed, whose poverty rate has stabilized at 36.1% and single-parent families, whose rate has fallen by 0.3 points to 34%. Note, the poverty rate of retirees has decreased to return to the level of that of active people (10.4%). The median standard of living stood at 2,228 euros per month for a single person.
