INPS pays abroad more than 370 thousand pensions (373.265, distributed in about 160 countries), spending on these treatments more than a billion a year, a figure much higher than the contributions paid by those who receive the checks. This was stated by INPS president Tito Boeri, speaking on Wednesday morning in a hearing before the Permanent Commission of Italians in the world of the Chamber of Deputies.
"More than a third of pensions paid in June 2017 actually have very short contribution periods, less than three years – underlined Boeri – and 70% have a contribution in Italy for less than 6 years. We are therefore faced with very short contribution periods in Italy. In any case, 83% have a contribution of less than 10 years. In all cases, these are very low contribution periods and the beneficiaries face these they can access welfare benefits such as minimum supplementary payments or the fourteenth month. So there is clearly a hiatus between the size and duration of the contributions and the possibility of accessing benefits that go far beyond the contributions paid”.
According to the number one of INPS, "despite the limits set by national and international legislation, supplements to the minimum treatment and increases are paid annually to subjects residing abroad which constitute an exit for the Italian State and which does not fall within the economic circuit of our country in the form of consumption".
From the INPS numbers it emerges that, between minimum integrations and social increases, the expense amounts to about eighty million for just under 40 pensioners. And for Boeri this is "an anomaly", given that "welfare services" paid abroad "go to reduce the burden of social spending in other countries: it is therefore as if our country were transferring to others" without “have a return on consumption”.
Then there are also “the practices of undue performance“, which Boeri quantified as “about 101 thousand, of which 60 thousand are in the process of recovering their pension, while the remainder are collected with cash remittances. The total amount to be recovered is approximately 270 million euros: most of the debts are in Argentina (27,5%), follow Australia (almost 15%), France, Canada e Use (all three with 9%)".
