Create a public supplementary pension fund, managed byINPS, to prevent today's young people from finding themselves with starvation pensions in a few decades. The idea is not new – the president of the social security institution, Pasquale Tridico, and the minister of labour, Nunzia Catalfo have talked about it in recent months – but it has recently become more concrete.
“I think the Ministry of Labor is thinking about an enabling law and a confrontation with the unions”, Tridico said on Tuesday before the parliamentary commission on social security institutions. In reality, a meeting between Catalfo and the workers' representatives is already scheduled for Monday 27st January to talk about pension reform and let it be known from the ministry that perhaps there will also be talk of the hypothesis of an INPS supplementary fund. But the comparison does not promise to be simple, given that already in recent months the unions said they were against the project, position reaffirmed by CGIL and UIL after Tridico's hearing.
According to the INPS president, however, a public supplementary fund would help to reach even “those who don't have high incomes”: a primary objective, given that today supplementary pensions are used "only by 25% of workers, mainly men and wealthy".
It remains to understand how to structure the contribution system. Certainly, a further increase in the compulsory payments is not conceivable. From the last OECD Pensions Outlook it emerges that, among the industrialized countries, Italy is already the one with the highest compulsory social security contribution. And quite a bit: we are at 33%, followed by Hungary with a gap of two percentage points. After all, even if a margin existed, a possible extension of the contribution wedge it would have an immediate impact on employment and growth, thus making it unworkable on a political level.
Consequently, if it ever arises, the supplementary pension fund managed by INPS will be forced voluntary contribution. A characteristic which, however, risks creating difficulties from a long-term distribution perspective. As he writes in the latest Ibl Focus Marco Abatecola – Welfare manager of Confcommercio, board member of various funds and former secretary of Assofondipensione – the voluntary nature of the contribution "does not fit well with systems unfunded”, like the Italian one, “where the pensions paid are paid with the contribution flows of active workers and not with the individual provisions of each one”.
If we take into account the unfavorable demographic forecasts, therefore the danger emerges that "the contributions of future generations of working age - continues Abatecola - are unable to pay for the increased benefits which will be due tomorrow on the basis of the additional contributions paid today by a rather limited audience that cannot be permanently identified over time".
