In 2014, the year to which the latest Insee study on poverty refers, the median income (which divides the French population into two) was 1,679 euros per month, or 20,150 euros per year (for a single person).
In simple terms, if the income is less, one is among the poorest 50%, otherwise among the richest 50%.
The poverty threshold is set by the Institute at 1,008 euros per month (12,096 euros per year); the poorest 10% in France earn only 10,770 euros per year, while the richest 10% have 37,260 euros per year (again, for a single person).
This calculation is straightforward: Insee considers all sources of income (from salaries to savings accounts, including rents) of a household as the monthly income and divides the sum by the number of people in the household (the famous Unit of Consumption (UC) used in your tax share calculations) according to the following scale: 1 UC for the first adult, 0.5 UC for other adults over 14 years old, and 0.3 UC for children under 14 years old.
The Insee study thus reveals the reality of social inequalities in France: with 14.1% of people living below the poverty line, France still has 8.76 million poor.
This is attributed to the crisis since before 2007 this number did not exceed 8 million. But with rising unemployment and stagnant salaries, the situation is not ideal.
Unemployed people are, moreover, the category most at risk of poverty (36.6%), followed by single-parent families (35.9%). Children are heavily affected: 20% of them are said to live in “poor” households.
