By Eric Heyer

Six months following the signing of a national industry-wide agreement on unemployment benefits between the social partners, with new rules that normally are to apply until 2016, the French government, which wants to go further in reforming the labour market, is evoking the possibility of once again reforming the unemployment insurance system by reducing the level of benefits and the period they are paid.

It is far from clear that reforming the unemployment insurance system is in keeping with the idea that any reform must improve the “quality of life” of our citizens. This is, in any case, what is indicated by the latest publication of the OECD.

In Chapter 3 of the 2014 edition of the OECD’s Employment Outlook, the international organization has implemented the recommendations of the 2009 Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi report by evaluating the quality of employment in the OECD countries. This new indicator supplements conventional measures of the quantity of work and should eventually lead to transforming the content of public policy by imposing new assessment criteria on the public authorities.

The OECD constructs an indicator on the quality of employment on the basis of three factors: the quality of wages, the security of the job market, and the quality of the working environment. According to the OECD, this last dimension is relatively mediocre in France: the high level of professional requirements and insufficient resources to accomplish tasks leads to a high level of on-the-job stress for French employees. As for wages, a review of both their level and distribution places France close to the average of the OECD countries. Finally, while the quality of work in the country is close to average in the developed countries, this is, according to the OECD, due mainly to a high level of job security in France, due to both the extent of social security … and the generosity of unemployment insurance.

The proposals for reforming unemployment insurance would therefore tend to deteriorate rather than improve the “quality of life” for the French, and would thus miss their target from that perspective. But would they lead to improving the quantity of work?

There is some food for thought on this subject in Chapter 1 of the Report, in which the OECD indicates that the structural unemployment rate – i. e. the unemployment rate depending on the impact of rigidities that prevent the labour market from functioning properly – has not increased since the onset of the crisis in France, just as is the case in many other developed countries: for the OECD, the sharp increase in unemployment seen since 2008 has a mainly cyclical component that cannot be combated by reforming unemployment insurance.

As a consequence, given the current situation of the French economy, reforming unemployment insurance along the lines suggested by the government will, if the OECD analysis is to be believed, undermine the quality of employment – and in particular the quality of life of the unemployed – without reducing the level of unemployment!

By Guillaume Allègre

Following the submission of 125,000 signatures collected by organizations supporting the introduction of a basic income, Swiss citizens will vote in a referendum on a popular initiative on the inclusion of the principle of an unconditional basic income in the Swiss Federal Constitution.

An OFCE Note (no. 39 of 19 December 2013) analyses the grounds for supporting the institution of a basic income.

While a basic income can take many forms, its principle is that it is paid (1) on a universal basis, in an equal amount to all, without testing for means or needs, (2) on an individual basis and not to households, and (3) unconditionally, without requirement of any counterpart. A progressive version would add a fourth characteristic: it must be (4) in an amount sufficient to cover basic needs and enable participation in social life.

While this looks attractive, it is not easy to find grounds in terms of distributive justice that are consistent with these four characteristics of a guaranteed basic income. So long as there exist economies of scale and a political trade-off between conditionality and the level of minimum income, then in a Rawlsian perspective a system of guaranteed minimum income like the French RMI / RSA programme (family-based with weak conditionality) seems preferable to a pure basic income. In addition, the generalized reduction of working time seems more sustainable than a guaranteed basic income for achieving the ecological and emancipatory goals that are often attributed to a guaranteed basic income.

It seems that the main advantage of a guaranteed basic income is that its universality means that it does not cause any undue use or non-use and so does not stigmatize the net beneficiaries of the system. From this perspective, minimum income support could be turned into a universal benefit, which would be less stigmatizing. This allocation needs to take into account family composition and set conditions on social participation. It would involve checks on black market work and include incentives to work. It would be supplemented by specific policies to provide support for children, the elderly and disabled people, i.e. people who do not respond to incentives, and it would complement the insurance system (unemployment, retirement, illness). The social protection system would thus not really be simplified but transformed in such a way as to avoid stigmatization and the lack of take-up.

While a guaranteed basic income is not a stupid idea, nor is it the miracle reform pictured by its advocates, i.e. a veritable Swiss Army knife for reforming social welfare, a social and environmental emancipator.

To contact the author: guillaume.allegre@sciencespo.fr

To follow the author on Twitter: @g_allegre