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Wages and SMIC (minimum wage), François Ruffin

Net monthly SMIC (minimum wage): €1,600, Nouveau Front populaire measure taken up

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Net monthly minimum wage for a full-time job. Set by the State, it is uprated at least every 1 January. Direction rule: ↑ higher SMIC.

« Des mesures fortes, concrètes, comme le SMIC à 1 600€ ou la retraite à 60 ans, qui revalorisent le travail. »1

Translation by the editorsStrong, concrete measures, like the SMIC at €1,600 or retirement at 60, which give value back to work.

Encoding

ParameterCurrent lawProgrammeEffective date or horizon
Net monthly SMIC (minimum wage), full time1,477.93 €/month1,600 €/month (assumption by the editors, see the costing)Full year, €bn per year, in 2019 euros (lower bound) and 2024 euros (upper bound)

Costing

Announced by the candidate

not announced

The programme does not cost this measure.

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

−€4.6bn

per year for the public accounts, revenue cut, range −€6.1bn to −€3.1bn.

The calculation

  • Net monthly SMIC (minimum wage), full time: (1,600 − 1,477.93) ÷ 100 = 1.22 times “+€100 in net monthly SMIC (about +6.8%)”, each a cost of €3.75bn (2.5 to 5).

Assumption by the editors. « SMIC à 1 600€ » [“SMIC at €1,600”] read as a net monthly amount, that of the Nouveau Front populaire programme (2024) which the text claims as its reference; the booklet does not specify net or gross, and €1,600 gross would be below the current SMIC (€1,867 gross).

Coefficient calculated by the editors from legisocial, Montant du SMIC 2026: the position is marked as an assumption by the editors.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Gross hourly SMIC (minimum wage) €12.31 since 1 June 2026, i.e. €1,867.02 gross per month and about €1,477.93 net for 35 hours. This is an automatic 2.41% uprating due to inflation (Labour Code, Art. L3231-5). The net figure is calculated by legisocial with 20.84% in contributions, and the June text is not cited. On 1 January 2026, the SMIC was €12.02 gross, i.e. €1,443.11 net (Decree No. 2025-1228 of 17 December 2025, info.gouv.fr).

Horizon. Full year, €bn per year, in 2019 euros (lower bound) and 2024 euros (upper bound). The cost comes mainly from the general reductions in social contributions indexed to the SMIC, net of additional contributions and of the decrease in the in-work benefit (prime d'activité). The lower bound (expert group, 2019) also counts the increase in the public sector wage bill and the feedback from income tax and benefits; the upper bound (Carbonnier, 2024) counts neither the public sector wage bill nor the income tax feedback.

Limits. Range between the two static costings read, with different scopes and legislation; neither relates to the 2026 RGDU (single general reduction in contributions). Lower bound, €2.5bn for +€100 of net SMIC: expert group on the SMIC, 2019 report (2019 legislation, table VI.1), effect on the general government balance after cushioning by the tax-benefit system, including €1.8bn of increase in the public sector wage bill. Upper bound, €5bn: costing by Clément Carbonnier for +€201 net (SMIC at €1,600, +14.4%, 2024 legislation), about €10bn of net cost before income tax and VAT feedback (€21bn of additional reductions, less €5bn of employee contributions, €3bn of employer contributions and €2.5bn of in-work benefit), scaled down linearly to €100; this costing does not count the public sector wage bill. Central value, €3.75bn: midpoint of these two costings, in the absence of a costing under the 2026 RGDU (coefficient calculated by the editors). The cost comes mainly from reductions in social contributions (lower revenue): it is classified as a revenue decrease. A SMIC increase also raises the lowest public sector salaries: declared overlap with the public sector pay index point. Outside the range, with a different scope: the « effet prix » [“price effect”] alone from the Institut Montaigne (€3.5bn, i.e. 1.75 per €100) and its updated costing of €19bn (17 to 21), which includes medium-term effects (employment, wage spillover) and is not static. Gaps between sources for the same measure: government €3bn, Rabault (PS) €23bn over three years, iFRAP +€32.5bn of reductions. In 2022, for a SMIC at €1,400 net, Montaigne costed €2.7bn. 2017 benchmark, under different law (general reduction, CICE, responsibility pact): the expert group costed a 1% increase in the gross SMIC at €0.24bn of deterioration of the general government balance, after deducting employee contributions, income tax and benefits; transposed to +€100 in 2026, this rule would give about €1.6bn (€2.4bn for the 2019 rule). The expert group's 2025 report does not cost a SMIC increase under the RGDU. Calibration on 2022: for the 2022 increase (+10.3%), a coefficient of 5 gave €7.6bn, against 2.7 at Montaigne. The cost depends heavily on the indexation of the reduction thresholds (2026 RGDU): a freeze of the thresholds in euros largely cancels it. Job losses estimated by Montaigne: 230,000 to 380,000 (not counted).

How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.

This lever in the method · Costing for François Ruffin

  1. nouspresident.fr, cahier « Pour les travailleurs essentiels », mot de la fin. Read the programme page.

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