Despite the Monti-Fornero reform, a drop in employment and the reduction in per capita productivity could make further interventions on general taxation necessary to make the Italian social security system more sustainable. This was supported today by actuaries at the National Social Security Day during the conference "Recomposing the virtuous circle of welfare: the contribution of actuaries", underlining that "employment and income are fundamental elements for the stability of the social security system and for the adequacy of pensions".
The reform has introduced fundamental elements for financial sustainability: the transition to the pro-quota contributory pension for those who - for a few more years - would have benefited from a fully remunerative pension; the elimination of old age pensions; the reformulation of retirement requirements. However, the public pension system, the actuaries recall, remains financed by contributions collected year by year, which in the presence of an increase in unemployment and a reduction in per capita productivity may not be sufficient for general stability. Precisely in relation to the same factors – employment and productivity – there is also uncertainty about the level that pension benefits calculated using the contributory method will be able to reach. In other words: will we have adequate pensions?
At National Retirement Day, actuaries specifically asked this question: “Can the replacement rate be considered a valid tool for measuring pension adequacy?” The answer was negative. Or rather: the replacement rate (ratio between pension and final salary, ed), in its classic meaning, can provide an indication of a trend; but it is so variable according to the career trend (employment/income) and the general economic trend (GDP, to which the revaluations of the capital accumulated by each taxpayer are linked year by year) as to require appropriate precautions. In particular, the actuaries suggest, it would be useful, especially for those farther from retirement age, to accompany the replacement rate with a confidence interval. This aspect is particularly important if one considers that the replacement rate of the basic pension is generally considered a fundamental element in assessing the opportunity/need to also participate in forms of supplementary pension.
The actuaries look at the entire welfare system in perspective: the forms of supplementary pensions - they argue - will have to organize, together with the health funds, adequate coverage for the needs of the citizen, needs that will also change in relation to the changes introduced in the compulsory pension system . According to the actuaries, it will be essential to develop forms of coverage for the needs of both the "mature" citizen, who does not yet meet the retirement requirements and is particularly exposed to occupational and health risks, and the elderly citizen, also in this case linked to income and to health.
The actuaries propose a broader concept of non-self-sufficiency: the more classic and traditional one must be accompanied by a new type of non-self-sufficiency, understood as "a state of not physical but economic difficulty deriving from the demographic, social and economic situation which has changed giving rise to new needs that citizens often have to face alone”. For this reason, the actuaries envisage some possible interventions to build, within the sphere of the already existing instruments, an enlarged and integrated welfare”.
