If they intend to make it to the end of the legislature The government and the majority will remember the 2026 budget session as an experience not to be repeated, because, while the opposition was barking at the moon without a shred of an idea to propose other than mending the same old socks, the majority got itself bogged down several times in the Budget Committee writing and rewriting maxiemendamenti which faded like roses the next morning. Everyone argued with someone. Initially, the two vice presidents argued with each other, then the League argued with the other parties, finally the League's Senate rapporteurs argued with the most authoritative Northern League minister in the government. Step by step, postponement after postponement, mediation after mediation, the disagreements were resolved.
Once again, however, the confrontation went haywire when an attempt was made to defuse the pension bomb, the topic that most excites Italians who see retirement as the embodiment of their individual socialism. Indeed, it is said that even young new hires inquire on their first day of work about their pension. The "pearl of Labuan" of our pension system is the early retirement pension (formerly known as the seniority pension), which is granted through significant contributory seniority, regardless of demographic requirements (which, however, are required for the ordinary old-age pension). In recent years, the requirements for this type of retirement have also become more stringent.
Today for the advance payment are required 42 years and ten months of seniority for men (who receive 66% of the benefits paid under this heading precisely because of their high-quality presence in the labor market) and one year less for women. Yet, despite these high requirements, the average age at which early retirement begins is now 61,7. On average, these generations receive a pension for a period equal to 80% of the time they worked. And we are moving toward a time when one year of work will correspond to one year of retirement for baby boomers. We must, therefore, resign ourselves to this reasoning: To ensure the fairness and sustainability of the system, it is not enough to refer only to how long one has worked, but also to how long one has received a pension. Because with pay-as-you-go financing (existing pensions are paid by those currently working), the burden falls on future generations. And we find ourselves in a historical transition that sees numerous generations, many of whom are early in their working lives, presenting themselves as elderly/young people with many years ahead of them (thanks to aging), dependent on cohorts decimated by declining birth rates, late entry into the labor market, and precarious employment relationships.
It happens then that OECD, ISTAT, UPB, RGS, Bank of Italy, as well as the best demographers, urgently call for the need to extend active life. Let us take for example the latest OECD report where the indication to extend the duration of working life is considered a necessary measure not only to "unlock manpower resources", but above all to ease the pension burden on younger generations, who must face the economic challenges of demographic aging while, precisely, experiencing a slowdown in their income growth.
To extend working activity in a fair way, the Italian system has given itself a mechanism that we could define scientific: I'automatic adjustment of retirement requirements to increases in life expectancyFor greater clarity, we report the legislative process followed, as described by the Bank of Italy in the document submitted during the hearing on the budget bill.
Automatic indexation to increased life expectancy was introduced in 2010 (Law No. 122 of July 30; the "Sacconi" reform) and extended the following year to the contribution length requirement for early retirement (Legislative Decree No. 201 of December 6, 2011; the "Fornero" reform). This update should normally occur every two years for everyone; however, there have been several exceptions. Law No. 232 of 2016 suspended it for the early retirement requirements of workers in so-called "abusive" professions until 2027; Law No. 205 of 2017 for workers performing "arduous" tasks for 2019 only; and Legislative Decree No. 4 of 2019 in the case of the seniority requirement for the early payment of workers subject to the mixed regime and "early" workers for the period 2019-2026 (the Budget Law for 2024 limited the period of this latter non-application to the end of 2024).
There were updates in 2013, 2016, and 2019, which tightened the requirements by three, four, and five months, respectively. The three subsequent updates, relating to 2021, 2023, and 2025, did not impact the requirements due to the lack of increase in life expectancy, also due to the effects of the pandemic. Under current legislation, starting January 1, 2026, the ordinary channels for accessing old-age and early retirement require the following requirements: (i) 67 years of age and 20 years of contributions for access to the old-age pension, for both workers in the mixed and pure contributory regimes; (ii) 41 years and 10 months of contributions for women and 42 years and 10 months for men for access to early retirement for workers in the mixed regime; (iii) 64 years of age, 20 years of contributions, and a pension equal to three times the social security benefit are eligible for early retirement for workers in the contributory regime. Current legislation sets the period between the maturity of the requirements for early retirement and the first commencement of social security benefits (the so-called "sliding window") at three months, for both workers in the mixed regime and those in the contributory regime.
Essentially, the automatic adjustment mechanism (which is carried out through an ISTAT review of changes; then, where appropriate, an inter-ministerial provision is issued to INPS specifying the new requirements) was frozen by the yellow-green government until 2026 as part of the Quota 100 and related operation. It was the Meloni government that brought forward the unblocking to 2025, acknowledging however that in the two-year period the demographic conditions for applying the increase had not matured.Demographic forecasts, however, postponed its application to the following two-year period, 2027-2028. The threat of a three-month increase in the requirements for seniority retirement had sparked the usual controversy, so much so that the government was forced to legislatively anticipate the increase in two tranches: a costly farce—but one must survive—for additional outlays of 0,5 billion in 2026, 1,8 in 2027, and 1,0 in 2028.
Then, suddenly, the government introduced an amendment that extended the windows until the end of the next decade. This was a "virtuous" provision because it allowed for an additional deferral of access to early retirement, but in a different way than what was envisaged when the automatic adjustment mechanism was implemented: by adjusting the windows. This sparked opposition from the League and everything that followed. But Salvini's is a Pyrrhic victory, because – at least for now – the indexing mechanism which plays a crucial role in ensuring the sustainability of the system. Does this mean that – without further changes – in 2028 it will be necessary to verify whether the administrative conditions for adjusting the requirements are met, as was done with the updates in 2013, 2016, and 2019, which – as the Bank of Italy recalled – led to tightening of the requirements by three, four, and five months, respectively, without a hitch or protests? Giancarlo Giorgetti is an excellent minister, a strict guardian of public finances, aware of the crisis of the pension system in the context of current demographic trends; but has a tendency to get into trouble on his own As happened at the beginning of the budget session, when he appropriated criticisms of the fiscal part of the budget that no one had addressed to him. On this occasion, too, he managed to salvage the crucial issue of indexing the requirements.
