A devastating economic crisis and general and youth unemployment, unimaginable until a few years ago, with millions of Italians who, according to ISTAT data, now live below the poverty line, now lead one to think of the need for the State to identify solutions for the protection of the weakest subjects such as to guarantee that liberation from need and poverty, which is the basis of the solidarity principles of Western societies at least from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution onwards, and are the foundation of the Welfare State.
For decades, thanks to the expansion of public expenditure and debt, critical situations have been faced by resorting to social safety nets almost completely unknown in other European countries: while the latter introduced guaranteed minimum incomes and wages, we resorted to baby pensions, easy invalidity pensions, early retirement at 45/50 years of age, imputed and agricultural pension contributions, social pensions, permanent layoffs, socially useful jobs for the organized unemployed and so on.
Today, with oxen having now escaped from the stable (given the level of public debt and current expenditure), the debate has begun, with great attention from the media and public opinion, on how to fight poverty by resorting to the social model of CBI or of guaranteed minimum income.
It is clear that any measure identified and adopted can only be borne by general taxation (or by the spending review?), in a situation of already heavy taxation for the producers of labor income (small entrepreneurs, subordinate and para-subordinate workers, self-employed, artisans).
One of the main aspects that must be evaluated is how to provide mechanisms for accessing the economic contribution, to prevent a minimum income guaranteed by the State from discouraging the permanence of work for producers of labor income (and therefore of income to be redistributed with taxation general): if you travel for wages of less than a thousand euros a month (a salary condition which is now widespread among precarious and part-time young people) the choice between a labor income and a guaranteed income may become uninteresting.
First of all, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by "citizenship income" and for "rguaranteed minimum income" :
- The CBI it is a financial contribution from the state free from taxation which, at certain timescales, is paid, on an individual level, to all citizens, sometimes from birth, and possibly also to residents of the country for a certain number of years, regardless the state of need and employment, the composition of the household and other patrimonial income. The basic income would therefore have the advantage, precisely because it is provided to everyone, of not impacting the decision to work or not, but the obvious disadvantage of being extremely burdensome for the state coffers.
- The guaranteed minimum income, it is an economic support, which varies according to the family composition, which is paid to those who do not have an income from work, on the condition that the total family income is lower than certain thresholds (poverty or state of need). Generally, the economic amount paid is accompanied by welfare contributions for rent, heating, school, etc. This type of intervention has an obvious disadvantage in relation to the amount of the amount: the closer it is to an income from work, the more some people may choose not to work and to spend the state allowances not on education or essential products but on luxuries. , a phenomenon to which some Northern European countries are not exempt.
Unlike basic basic income, which is understood to be universal and unlimited over time, the guaranteed minimum income therefore concerns a limited number of beneficiaries and is not necessarily linked to the individual alone but to the overall economic situation of the family unit.
Since both of these two types of state contribution are granted to all those who are in possession of citizenship or residence, even the guaranteed minimum income is still a citizen's income: hence the undifferentiated use of the two terms in the current political debate.
Moreover, in the bills that are currently being submitted to the Senate Labor Commission, the payment of economic support would be subordinated not only to the overall situation of the family income, but also to the active search for work by the interested party and would lapse after a certain number of refusals to suitable job offers presented by the relevant employment agencies: one could therefore more properly speak of unemployment income to be paid to those who have lost their jobs, and whose NASPI (the new unemployment benefit) has expired, and to those who have been unemployed or inactive for a long time.
In European countries, with the exception of Greece, Hungary and ours, state programs against poverty have been in place for years, which provide for monthly economic payments to the family unit (generally supplemented by interventions on rent, heating or health costs and scholastic), ranging from around 450 euros for a single person to 900 euros for a couple with two children in France, and in the same cases, from 345 euros to around 1000 euros in Germany, from 680 euros to 1600 euros in Great Britain , to get from around 1500 euros to 3300 euros in Denmark.
In our country, attempts have been made several times to introduce, on an experimental basis, in some municipalities a support provision (both economic and service) which would move in the direction of the minimum citizen's income, albeit with the aim of promoting the passage of beneficiary of assisted employment protection.
However, the scarcity of available economic resources has, up to now, made it difficult to consolidate and extend these experiments to build a general welfare benefit against poverty that guarantees a transfer of structural wealth to all citizens living in a state of actual need.
It is enough to remember that the only universal intervention adopted in recent years is the ordinary social card for food expenditure of 40 euros per month, while last year a project was launched to introduce, on an experimental basis, in 12 Italian cities with more than 250.000 inhabitants a new subsidy against poverty, the Sia (Support for active inclusion)
Sia is not only an economic support to the poorest citizens, but a much broader project of active social inclusion: work for adults, school for children, social and health care for the whole family.
The monthly amount of the economic contribution to the beneficiaries is modulated on the basis of the members of the family nucleus and can reach up to 400 euros per month for families with 5 or more members.
The disbursement of the economic benefit takes place via a normal electronic payment card, called Experimental Purchase Card and made out to the head of the household, for the purchase of foodstuffs, pharmaceutical and parapharmaceutical products and the payment of domestic gas and electricity bills. Expenses made with this Card are debited and paid for directly by the State, within the established limits, rather than being charged to the Cardholder.
The Sia project was drawn up at the end of 2013 by a Commission of experts, including Prof. Tito Boeri, current President of INPS, and chaired by Senator Guerra, at the time Undersecretary for Welfare in the Letta government, and at the moment the allocated resources amount to approximately 120 million euros over three years.
If, once the experimental phase is successfully completed, the project were extended on a national basis, the cost to be borne by the State, as calculated by the Commission itself, would be around 7-8 billion euros per year, a cost roughly similar to that of 80 euros, but perhaps with a greater impact on domestic primary consumption.
