FOOD CHECK. Renamed “exceptional back-to-school aid”, the food check of 100 euros should be paid at the start of the 2022 school year. What date of payment? For who ? We tell you everything.
[Updated July 19, 2022 at 11:28 a.m.] The food check or rather the exceptional back-to-school aid is expected in a few months! Indeed, this bonus of 100 euros plus 50 euros per additional dependent child will be paid from October 1, 2022, intended for scholarship students and beneficiaries of social minima to try to fight against rising inflation, which is detrimental for the purchasing power of the most modest (5.8% in June over one year). An emergency measure, similar to the inflation bonus introduced at the end of 2021.
This time, the exceptional back-to-school aid will be more targeted, 8 million households will be affected, which still represents nearly 14 million French people. The aid will be paid automatically, without any action necessary on the part of the beneficiaries. A transfer will be made to their bank account. The measure is estimated at 1 billion euros for the State. The food voucher should not come out of the ground before at least the first quarter of 2023. Deemed too complex to set up initially, the terms and conditions concerning the partner stores, the products concerned (the objective is to target organic, healthy and French products) will have to be examined and discussed in the coming months to reach an agreement.
Who will be able to benefit from this new aid from the start of the 2022 school year? Or rather, exceptional back-to-school aid as the government baptized this emergency aid during the last Council of Ministers, Thursday July 7, 2022.
Scholarship students, recipients of housing assistance (APL) even if they no longer live with their parents as well as recipients of social minima such as RSA, ASS, AAH, or ASPA. The Caf should be in charge of the payment for the beneficiaries of social minima (as for the payment of the first inflation bonus), Pôle Emploi for job seekers, or Urssaf for the self-employed. Be careful however, the executive has not yet given a directive in this direction.
The implementation of the food check has proven to be more complex than expected for the executive and has seen several dates being brought forward over the months. Finally, the government decided during the Council of Ministers on July 7, the exceptional back-to-school aid which replaces the food check for the time being will be paid from October 1, 2022!
Obtaining the food voucher should be conditional on the income level of the beneficiaries. Recipients of certain social benefits should in particular be concerned, such as beneficiaries of APL, RSA, AAH or even Aspa. Apart from that, the payment should be made automatically via a bank transfer without any action on the part of the beneficiaries. In total, the 8 million poorest French people will be able to take advantage of this new inflation bonus or food emergency bonus at the start of the 2022 school year, i.e. 14 million people. This exceptional back-to-school aid will also benefit scholarship students and ASS beneficiaries.
The amount of the food check or exceptional back-to-school aid was made official by Government spokesperson Olivia Grégoire during a trip near Nantes on Thursday, June 29. It will be 100 euros plus 50 euros for each additional dependent child. The information was confirmed during the Council of Ministers on July 7, 2022. For a family with two children, the aid will therefore increase to 200 euros, due to the two dependent children.
For the time being, we do not know who pays the inflation bonus according to the status of the beneficiaries. Referring to the organizations paying the first inflation bonus distributed to 38 million French people at the start of the year, here is who from the Caf or Pôle Emploi, for example, will pay this exceptional back-to-school aid. For now, no decision has been made:
