Stay away from sorcerer's apprentices and simplifiers of complex matters. Especially when dealing with tangled situations such as pension systems. The ''zero-abolitionists'' of the Fornero reform are putting forward proposals which – as far as we can understand for now – would create more problems than they would claim to solve. In making this consideration we are not referring to the usual arguments: the amount of billions of less public spending that would end up in the trash; the effects on future generations; the displacement deriving from demographic trends and anything else the populist cicadas are not willing to take into consideration. In the middle there would be the condition of the people of flesh and blood, in particular that of the workers of the private sectors.
But let's proceed in order, starting from the programs of the League and the M5S. Salvini, after imposing the zeroing of the notorious law in the center-right's common program (let's forget to give importance to the promise of a new "economically and socially sustainable" reform) realized that he had to provide indications on what - in his view – could be the rules of retirement. In his television wanderings he gets along like this, with the benevolence of the hosts: he will retire with 41 years of payments regardless of age. The M5S program repeats a word (quota) alongside two numbers: 100 and 41. If we are allowed to reveal the mystery, the formula can only have the following meaning: it will be possible to go into retirement when the sum between the The age and seniority of contributions will reach 100 (the mechanism introduced by Minister Cesare Damiano in 2007 is restored) or by claiming, at any age, 41 years of contributions paid. If you want to be difficult, you might ask whether – after the zeroing and abolition – that contribution calculation, which has become the emblem of fairness, will continue to operate, pro rata since 2012. But let's not complicate life. In short, early retirement/seniority would become the only channel of access to retirement, while it is not clear what would happen to old age.
At this point, it should be remembered that for fifty years to date, the Italian pension system (like that of other countries) has been characterized by two distinct pension paths: the old-age treatment whose fundamental requirement is constituted by the chronological age (it is the law that draws the line usually at a level congruous with respect to demographic trends) in competition with a minimum contribution requirement (20 years); the seniority treatment achievable after a fairly long period of working activity regardless of the chronological age or with a lower age than the ordinary old age. Obviously, the personal data and contribution requirements have undergone changes over time which, however, have not altered the basic characteristics of the two retirement categories.
Where, then, is the problem? Given how the labor market is made up, from a gender point of view, it is male workers who - in the decades behind us and today - have had the opportunity to accumulate long and continuous contribution histories arriving at the payment of the coveted check at an age younger than the canonical old age (in 2017 flows equal to 61,1 years on average in the Fpld-Inps). So much so that in the private sector as a whole, 78% of advance payments are received by males. The vast majority of women are not able to accumulate such significant seniority (the average is equal to 25,5 working years compared to 38 years for men) and end up making use of the old-age pension (for which a reduced number of contributions) to a higher age (in 2017 the effective age at the effective date was around 65). This explains why the average old-age pension is more than double the old-age pension.
To what conclusion do these arguments lead us? Simple: the new requisites proposed by the Northern League-grillino combination would prevent the vast majority of female workers in the private sectors (in the public sector the situation is different, also due to the history of these institutes) from retiring, because they would be unable or quota 100 nor to assert 41 years of seniority, except at an age (at this point only theoretical) much higher than the 67 years now waved as a threat. Basically, our reset-abolitionists would end up restoring Cipputi's pension without their knowledge; which – as is well known – is male.
From the site The work diary.
