France’s RSA income support: 35% lack of take-up?[RSA : un non-recours de 35% ?]

The lack of take-up of France's RSA income supplement benefit is often invoked as an argument for reforming the system for assisting people on low incomes (such as a Universal Income or establishment of a single social benefit that would merge the RSA, the in-work Prime d'activité benefit and Housing benefit). According to the CNAF, the lack of take-up of the base RSA benefit (RSA-socle) is 36% (CNAF, 2012). To arrive at this estimate, the CNAF relies on a quantitative survey conducted over the phone with 15,000 households selected from their tax returns. The RSA quantitative survey was specifically designed to replicate an eligibility test for the benefit. However, some households who are ineligible for the RSA claim they are benefitting from it. This category represented 524 households in the survey, i.e. 11% of the beneficiaries. This could result from a reporting error at the time of the survey, or from an approximation of the survey's eligibility test. In any case, the existence of this category shows that it is difficult to estimate the lack of take-up of a benefit using a survey, even a specific one. In addition, the Secours catholique association estimates the lack of take-up of the base RSA at 40% (out of all the households they encountered in 2016). [First paragraph]