Distributional national accounts National accounts - 2020 Base

Each year, national accounts establish the levels of net national income (NNI) for the economy and net disposable income (NDI) and gross disposable income (GDI) for households. The distributed national accounts method breaks down macroeconomic aggregates by household categories. These aggregates are distributed according to household characteristics using microeconomic data and are benchmarked to macroeconomic totals based on accounting definitions. This method thus benefits from the international and temporal consistency of national accounting concepts. Where microeconomic information is incomplete, distribution assumptions are applied. However, it relies on more assumptions and simulations than statistics on living standards and inequality derived solely from social statistics.

The detailed tables of the 2023 distributed national accounts provide retro-polated data for the period 2020–2023 as experimental statistics. A methodological note published on the national accounts portal details the concepts, assumptions, sources, and methods used. These tables are accompanied by:

In the past, INSEE has published several decompositions of the macroeconomic components of household income or consumption by category, as well as an extension of this logic to NNI, i.e., to the national economy as a whole. The results disseminated continue this work as part of the ongoing improvement of these innovative statistical products, adopting slightly different conventions. In particular, the methodology differs conceptually from the extended distributed national accounts published in 2024 [André et al., 2024] on two points:

Furthermore, private transfers between households—particularly with the rest of the world—and public transfers with the rest of the world (international cooperation, exchanges with the EU) are outside the scope of this exercise, which focuses on describing the extended redistribution carried out by national public authorities alone. In particular, redistribution operated by the European Union is not described. The balance of transfers between households and businesses and the rest of the world is, on average, of limited magnitude in France.

Net National Income (NNI) consists of employee compensation and mixed income for self-employed individuals (including social contributions for both fields) received by households, rental income for homeowner households (including imputed rents benefiting owner-occupants), resident business profits, net taxes on products and production received by public administrations, and net financial income received from the rest of the world (interest, dividends, and investment income received by resident units, minus those paid to non-resident units). Unlike Gross National Income (GNI), NNI excludes capital depreciation related to infrastructure, housing, and equipment. GNI equals Gross Domestic Product (GDP) minus primary income paid to non-resident economic units plus primary income received from the rest of the world by resident units.

Basic prices is the amount the producer receives from the purchaser per unit of goods or service produced, less the taxes on the products and plus any subsidies on the products. The basic price excludes transport costs invoiced separately.

Extended primary income is defined as net national income (NNI), from which net taxes minus subsidies on products received by public administrations are deducted (so-called basic price accounting). The components of income before transfers are thus employee compensation and mixed income for self-employed individuals (including social contributions for both fields) received by households, rental income for homeowner households (including imputed rents benefiting owner-occupants), profits of resident businesses, net taxes minus subsidies on production received by national public administrations, and net financial income received from the rest of the world (interest, dividends, and investment income received by resident units minus those paid to non-resident units).

Extended primary income is distributed across household categories using distributed national accounts: allocated before any redistribution mechanism, it then constitutes their income before national public transfers. Starting from extended primary income, public transfers (taxes, social contributions, monetary benefits, in-kind benefits) adjust household incomes to result, after transfers, in income after national public redistribution, referred to as the extended standard of living once divided by consumption units (CUs). Households with a post-transfer income higher than their pre-transfer income are considered net beneficiaries, and net contributors in the opposite case.

Extended income after national public redistribution net of indebtedness (extended standard of living net of indebtedness, once divided by CUs) further integrates the balance of public transfers (counted negatively in case of indebtedness) and thus defines extended redistribution (i.e., national public extended redistribution net of indebtedness, applied to extended primary income, and which is balanced by construction).

Imputed rents for homeowner households refer to the rental service homeowners provide themselves by owning their residence: it represents the rent they would pay if they were tenants of the home they occupy.

Direct levies for households include income taxes (IR, CSG) and wealth taxes as well as social contributions. In a broader sense, a levy is a transfer paid by households to public administrations and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs).

Monetary social benefits correspond to replacement income (pensions, unemployment benefits, daily allowances and annuities following work accidents and occupational illnesses), minimum social benefits, and other social benefits (family allowances, activity bonuses). They do not include housing benefits, which are recorded as in-kind transfers in national accounting. In a broad sense, a benefit is a transfer received by households, either in cash (monetary) or "in-kind," meaning provided directly or through reimbursements by public administrations.

In-cash transfers refer to direct levies and monetary social benefits (family benefits, minimum social benefits, replacement income such as pensions, unemployment benefits, disability pensions, and sick leave benefits). Conversely, non-monetary transfers include all other transfers involved in extended redistribution, including the sum of in-kind transfers, collective expenditures, and smaller transfers. In-cash social benefits do not include housing allowances, which in national accounting are recorded as in-kind transfers.

Social transfers in-kind correspond to individual goods and services provided to households free of charge or at economically insignificant prices by public administrations and NPISHs, whether these goods and services were market-purchased or produced on a non-market basis. This category includes social security reimbursements, other social security benefits in-kind, social assistance benefits in-kind, and transfers of individual non-market goods and services.

Collective expenditures refer to non-assignable public services. Effective collective consumption (P42) comprises public goods and services whose benefits cannot be assigned to a particular household. It benefits the entire community or large sections of society (defense, police, justice, collective facilities, regulation, etc.). Collective consumption is financed by public administrations (S13).

The gross primary income of households (S14) consists of employee compensation and mixed income for self-employed individuals (including social contributions) received by households, rental income for homeowner households (including imputed rents benefiting owner-occupants), and net financial income received by households (interest, dividends, and investment income received net of those paid). This gross primary income can be distributed across households using distributed national accounts. Its components are allocated across households based on assumptions and microeconomic data.

Starting from this gross primary income, certain public transfers (taxes, social contributions, social benefits) adjust household incomes to result, after transfers, in gross disposable income (GDI). If in-kind social transfers are added, this results in adjusted gross disposable income (AGDI). Other transfers not directly intermediated by public administrations also contribute to gross disposable income (e.g., contracts linking households to insurance companies), but the balance of these transfers paid and received is residual compared to the total of public transfers.

Net disposable income (NDI) of households (S14), unlike extended primary income, does not include primary income from other sectors such as undistributed business profits for households or taxes and subsidies on products and production received by public administrations. It includes direct levies and monetary social benefits and income directly received by households. NDI corresponds to the income available to households for consumption and net savings. Unlike GDI, it is net of capital depreciation related to housing and equipment of households.

Usual disposable income is the microeconomic concept measuring household income available for consumption and savings. It includes activity income net of social contributions, unemployment benefits, pensions, property income (rental and financial), and other social benefits, net of direct taxes (income tax, housing tax, general social contribution – CSG, social debt reduction contribution – CRDS, and social levies on wealth income). It excludes the monetary equivalent of the economic advantage from owning one’s main residence (imputed rents).

To compare living standards for households of different sizes or compositions, income is divided by the number of consumption units (CUs). These are generally calculated as follows: 1 CU for the household’s first adult, 0.5 CU for each additional person aged 14 or older, and 0.3 CU for children under 14. This equivalence scale (known as the OECD scale) accounts for economies of scale within households.

In a ranked distribution, the median divides the distribution into two equal parts. Thus, for a wage distribution, 50% of wages fall below the median, and 50% are above. Deciles are the values dividing this distribution into ten equal parts. Individuals ranked in this way belong to different deciles of living standards. Quintiles divide a distribution into five equal parts, called quintiles and denoted as Q1 to Q5.

In the monetary sense of redistribution, the usual standard of living equals the household’s (usual) disposable income divided by the number of consumption units (CUs). The standard of living is thus the same for all individuals within a given household.

The inter-tenth ratio (D10/D1) of the extended standard of living is calculated here by comparing the average amount of the top 10% (D10) according to the usual standard of living to the average amount of the bottom 10% (D1). It differs from the inter-decile ratio between the 9th decile (the standard of living threshold above which individuals belong to the top 10%) and the 1st decile (the standard of living threshold below which individuals belong to the bottom 10%).