We are now here: the first pension cuts will start in April, while the sting of the adjustment will arrive only in June, that is - strategically, for Lega and M5S - after the European elections of 26 May. Confirmation came with one of the latest INPS circulars, number 44 of 22 March.
But let's recap the whole story.
With the latest budget law, the government blocked the indexation of pensions in the three-year period 2019-2021. It means that pension checks will not be revalued in proportion to the increase in prices, a measure normally used to protect the purchasing power of retirees from inflation.
PENSION INDEXING BLOCK 2019: THE 7 SCAGLIONI
However, the blockade is not total: it includes seven brackets. Here they are.
- 100% indexation for pensions up to 3 times the INPS minimum (1.522 euros gross per month);
- 97% indexing on the part exceeding 3 times and up to 4 times the minimum (from 1.522 to 2.029 gross euros per month);
- 77% indexing on the part exceeding 4 times and up to 5 times the minimum (from 2.029 to 2.537 gross euros per month);
- 52% indexing on the part exceeding 5 times and up to 6 times the minimum (from 2.537 to 3.044 gross euros per month);
- 47% indexing on the part exceeding 6 times and up to 8 times the minimum (from 3.044 to 4.059 gross euros per month);
- 45% indexing on the part exceeding 8 times and up to 9 times the minimum (from 4.059 to 4.566 gross euros per month);
- 40% indexation on the part exceeding 9 times the minimum (i.e. exceeding 4.566 euros gross per month).
The brackets are constructed on the basis of the amount of the minimum pension for 2018 (equal to 507,42 euros) and not to that envisaged for 2019 (equal to 513,01 euros).
HOW MUCH MONEY DO PENSIONERS LOSE?
All this will allow the State to save 2,5 billion euros over three years, money that will be used to finance other measures, starting with share 100.
And for retirees, what will change? According to INPS, the cuts will affect 5,6 million checks, just under a third of the total (about 16 million). For more than half of affected positions (2,6 million), the average reduction will be insignificant, just 28 gross cents per month. But for all the others, the cut could reach several tens of euros per month, up to a maximum of around 200 euros.
WHY IS AN ADJUSTMENT ALSO NEEDED?
The block on the indexation of pensions is nothing new: it has existed since the time of the Letta government. Now, it is true that the seven brackets launched by the yellow-green Executive are less penalizing than the mechanism in force from 2013 to 2018, however, if the Pentaleghisti had not intervened, from 2019 the old indexation scheme would have come back into force, which provided for only two brackets:
- 90% indexing on the part exceeding 3 times and up to 5 times the minimum;
- 75% indexing on the part exceeding 5 times the minimum.
Here is the bitter surprise. The new percentages established by the yellow-green government were to come into force in January, but the Italian bureaucracy has slow times, so in these first months of 2019, pensioners have received a higher allowance than they should, calculated with the old two-stage system.
Hence the need for a balance. The INPS must recover the extra money paid between January and March and will do so retroactively, in a single withdrawal. The money that pensioners will have to pay back is not very much (about 170 euros a year for pensions of just over 2 thousand euros a month), but together with the cut in indexation they would risk putting the majority parties in a bad light in a very delicate moment. This is why the adjustment will only take effect in June, after the European elections.
THE REACTION OF THE TRADE UNIONS
The unions announce battle: “A joint CGIL, CISL and UIL demonstration is scheduled for June 100st – announces the general secretary of Spi-Cgil, Ivan Pedretti – We are against both the blocking of the equalization and the 2021 million adjustment. Not to mention two and a half billion which are recovered in total with the cuts between now and XNUMX, and not from golden pensions, but from medium-low ones. We ask for a fair taxation: even without this intervention, pensioners have a more penalizing taxation, because they do not have all the tax advantages of employees".
With the indexing cut, Spi, Fnp and Uilp add, “sums will be subtracted from those who have worked all their lives and are not at fault. If it is argued that it is a question of little money, then let them leave it to the pensioners without subjecting them to the umpteenth robbery”.
