It may also be which coalition it belongs to Matthew Salvini win the elections next 25 September, and that the leader of the League holds an important position in the possible executive chaired by Giorgia Meloni. But the Captain would always remain rude and ignorant (in the classic sense of someone who speaks without knowing how things are), capable only of arguments suitable for the billiard rooms of the Sports Bars of the Lombardy province.
Salvini against Fornero and the usual quota 41 recipe
(Ostra)speaking in Bari in the role of globe trotter of the electoral campaign as if the 2011 reform – voted by the Monti government and approved by a very large parliamentary majority in the context of the decree Save Italy – was an act of perverse cruelty attributable personally to the minister then in office, Salvini addressed Elsa Fornero with the usual malice with which he feels authorized to persecute for years a lady, a distinguished economist, whose work as a minister is appreciated throughout the civilized world, by international institutions and by the markets. ''I still get nervous thinking about what Fornero said a few nights ago on TV. Defending her law – muttered Salvini -. These elderly people in Italy could work a little more.' Shame on you – the Captain blurted out – shut your mouth if you have to say such nonsense, show respect to those who have worked for 40 years in a factory, in a restaurant, in a rest home”.
The stock of early retirement pensions is higher than old age pensions
Then, after proposing the usual recipe of 41 years of payments as a viaticum for retirement, he launched his anathema: "It is madness to retire at 67". But please, the Conducator is warned that in addition to old age pension (which allows access to treatment based on seniority of contributions regardless of age) there is also a old age pension at 67 years of age with at least 20 years of payouts? Because - unfortunately there are many, especially women in the private sector, who are unable to claim, at the time of retirement, continuous and long periods of work, such as to allow them to leave the world of work at an effective age slightly above 60 years (as is possible for men of the baby boom generation). Moreover, the government of which Salvini was powerful vice-president of the Council took care to block the automatic adjustment to life expectancy until the end of 2026 for early treatments (42 years and 10 months for men and one year less for women) but not for the old-age pension.
Perhaps if the leader of the League took the trouble to consult some statistics, he would discover that in Italy – despite the Fornero reform – the stock of early pensions is more than two million higher than that of old-age benefits (source-Corte dei Conti on INPS data).
It is also good to remember that – even before the Conducator imposed the introduction of share 100 in order to free the Italians ''punished'' by Elsa Fornero, the effective retirement age at the effective date was that resulting from the following table which shows that the Italians were already free:
Effective retirement age in January-September 2018
| Old age | Seniority | Disability | Survivors | Total | |
| Our boys | 66,5 | 61 | 54,1 | 77,0 | 63,7 |
| Our girls | 65,9 | 60,1 | 52,3 | 74,7 | 69,6 |
| Total | 66,3 | 60,7 | 53,4 | 75,1 | 66,7 |
It is obvious that the ''ours are coming'' of the ''decree of the two identities'' (legislative decree no. 4/2019) has accelerated - without the need for it - early retirement (see graph). As for outgoing flexibility, the Italian pension system looks like Swiss cheese, thanks to the protection for jobs that are not only strenuous but also disadvantaged, in favor of certain personal and family conditions, for woman option, All 'Social bee and the regime of the so-called forty-unists.
The problems of the pension system: the demographic crisis
Then there is one last important aspect to consider: the warped demographic trend in the grip between declining birth rates and ageing, processes which on the one hand call into question the reforms of the pension system, on the other labor market imbalances. A recent essay ''The cradle trap. Why not having children is a problem for Italy and how to get out of it'' written by two journalists, Luca Cifoni and Diodato Pirone, published by Rubbettino. Matteo Salvini would do well to read it. The authors compare the data relating to the number of components of the various population cohorts, from which it clearly emerges that the incoming generations have not been able, for some time, to replace the outgoing ones, not because they want to sit on the sofa and enjoy the income of citizenship or because they refuse certain jobs. Certainly there are also these aspects, but the most important is precisely of an existential nature: they were not born in an adequate number.
After all, it is easy to imagine that there will be a time when the million born in 1964 will come into contact as pensioners with the 399 born in 2021 (or perhaps with the 500 of previous years). What will happen at that point? If today – write the authors – we have 2,7 potential workers for every elderly person, in about thirty years ''for every three people of working age there will be two over 65s to maintain''. Indeed, in an even shorter period, cohorts born in prolific times will retire, while the number of taxpayers will progressively shrink due to the supply chain falling birth rate.
Sooner or later it will be necessary to acknowledge that young people, which would be needed to compensate for ageing, do not exist because they were not born to an adequate extent. How is it then possible to expect to retire for the next few years sixty-year-olds, belonging to numerous generations, who will receive their treatment for at least twenty years at the expense of a progressively decreasing number of potential taxpayers?
The younger generations are less and less consistent
Our demographic winter does not depend – as opportunistically argued – only on economic reasons (the absence of support policies, the so-called precariousness, etc.) which also should not be underestimated. There are aspects that make the phenomenon of a structural nature. First of all, the collapse of the youth population is the consequence of what happened in the previous cohorts, which were also less numerous and consequently less prolific. Thus a race to the bottom was established; the younger generations are less and less consistent. Up to a certain point there has been compensation from the immigrants, in general at a young age and oriented towards proliferation.
The chain of social reproduction is broken
In recent years - for many understandable reasons - the flows have had problems and foreign families have oriented towards behaviors borrowed from Italian ones. In a nutshell, the supply chain of social reproduction is breaking. Yet ''Migration - the authors write in harmony with the demographers and with all due respect to Salvini - is the only demographic variable that can change current trends relatively quickly, while changes in the reproductive choices of the entire population require a wider horizon''. But you arethe flow of foreigners it is essential, the solution is not at hand. The manpower reserve is not infinite and the flows do not come on command or through deportation or from clandestine landings on our coasts. Then it would not even be easy to integrate a population of foreigners which in about twenty years would double (to be prudent) its presence, in the face of the constant and progressive reduction of the Italian one.
Blangiardo: "There are too many early exits"
This is why Elsa Fornero is right in supporting the need to increase the retirement age. You expressed the same considerations in an interview on Huffpost Gian Carlo Blangiardo, distinguished scientist, demographer and president of the Institute of Statistics, appointed by the yellow-green government: ''With a demographic like this, it is not sustainable for companies to send their personnel away at the age of 55-60''. And to the journalist's sly question about the responsibility of the legislation, Blangiardo replied: “I don't know if, and to what extent, it is the legislation's fault. I just know that there are too many early releases. And a remedy should be found for this''.
