Not so simple? Comparing policy efforts to integrate means-tested benefits in France and the United Kingdom

Abstract

A key theme of contemporary social security debate is the ‘complexity’ of means-tested benefits and the concomitant need for ‘simplification’ as a solution. One strategy for simplification has been to propose greater integration of such benefits, including their merger into ‘universal’ (comprehensive) minimum income schemes. This paper examines the case of France, where governments recently sought to integrate means-tested benefits by creating a Universal Activity Income (RUA). By 2022, after several years of policy work, the original reform proposal appeared to have been abandoned, although governmental initiatives seeking benefit integration via alternative means continue. We therefore consider two questions: what was the proposed RUA, and why was it not implemented? To facilitate our responses, we contrast the French example with the UK's Universal Credit (UC) as a secondary case. Approved in 2012, UC was one model for the RUA and also provided lessons for policymakers in France. We find that the RUA resembled UC in many respects, although there was some ambiguity among French policymakers about the desired nature of integration. We do not seek to assess UC as a policy reform. But we argue that for the RUA, unlike for UC, the necessary conditions of policy and political viability, as well as opportune circumstances, were not fulfilled to allow it to reach implementation. Paradoxically, while UC was in part an inspiration for the RUA, problems observed in the implementation of UC also undermined the policy case for the RUA. The case study provides: new insights into contemporary social security policy in France and the UK; a framework for comparative analysis of benefit integration proposals; and an understanding of causal conditions shaping the likelihood of policymakers (not) effecting radical benefit integration.