For Philippe Defeyt, there are two conclusions to be drawn from this study. Firstly, in all cases, the reference budget is higher than the integration income, but also higher than the poverty line used today in Belgium. On the other hand, for people who are lucky enough to benefit from social housing “basically with an integration income they can get by“. Social housing allows them, in fact, to save money. We cannot therefore treat people in situations (private and social housing, for example) in the same way with an integration income which is the same . “We think we are equal because we give the same integration income, but we are very unequal in terms of standard of living because one of the two households is lucky enough to benefit from social housing.l.” Stating that his proposal is not to reduce the integration income for those who benefit from social housing.
Advantage of calculating a reference budget, according to Philippe Defeyt, this forces us to think about the real living conditions and it also highlights the inequalities for the lowest incomes.