During the electoral campaign and until last autumn, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio repeated that they would "raise the minimum pensions", with the Grillino leader including this operation in the broader strategy aimed at "defeating absolute poverty". Naturally, the instrument to achieve the goal was the "citizenship pension", i.e. the mythical 780 euros already promised to millions of Italians with the citizen's income.
Now that the INPS machine has started up on this front, it is clear that things are not at all as they were intended to be. The money to raise the more than 780 million pensions below this threshold to 6 euros has never been there, not even close. And retirees are realizing it.
According to INPS data updated to April 24, so far there have been 947 thousand requests for basic income. Of these, just 14%, or 133.252, concerns the so-called citizenship pensions. If the percentage of rejections is confirmed (-25%, a quarter), only 100 will be accepted.
It is true that many Italians receive more than one pension, but the disproportion still remains abysmal: compared to over 6 million treatments for less than 780 euros per month, the citizenship pensions that will probably be paid on the basis of the requests received so far do not exceed the 100 thousand units.
But how is it possible that the questions are so few? Simple: the "decreton" has imposed very strict limits for access to the subsidy. The most disputed is that of personal data limits: unless a disabled person is present, to be entitled to the integration of the allowance it is necessary that all family members are at least 67 years old. For example, a couple made up of a 69-year-old and a 63-year-old cannot even apply for a citizen's pension, regardless of their level of poverty.
If, on the other hand, you meet all the requirements, but you have one home owned – as happens to the majority of elderly Italians, who may have inherited the family home in the country – then you are not entitled to the rent contribution, therefore from 780 euros per month you go down to 630.
In short, a real joke. It is no coincidence that the CGIL, CISL and UIL have called together pensioners from all over Italy for a protest to be held on June XNUMX in Rome, in Piazza del Popolo.
