Le pensions are a sort of Pandora's box from which it is very easy to release the curse of demagogy. After all, in Italy there are 16 million pensioners protected by a deliberately falsified narrative that - from elementary school textbooks to television talk shows - represents pension recipients as dirt poor who manage to make it to the end of the month only thanks to the ability to multiply loaves and fishes. In the budget maneuver under examination by Parliament, the Government has adhered to the bare minimum in this delicate matter, reconfirming some particular ways out that take into account situations of actual need to access early retirement (social Ape, arduous and disadvantaged jobs, difficult individual and family conditions, early retirement, women's option) in an overall context that has reversed the purposes of the measures introduced by Conte 1 (yellow-green) aimed at promoting early retirement (quota 100 and blocking of requirements with respect to the increase in life expectancy). Today, the same political forces that had declared war on the 2011 reform are the same ones that express a Minister of Economy and Finance who has demolished the "absurd vice" of the Italian pension system, in which early retirement pensions prevail in number, amount and expenditure over ordinary old age pensions.
The cake of the country of advance
It is well known that the devil is in the details. In the 2024 budget, the government stumbled upon a provision that wanted to eliminate a privilege that had survived in the public sector and in particular for healthcare workers, which allowed a 25% increase in compensation for those who were able to recover (also through the corresponding redemption of the degree) a year in the remuneration regime. It was child's play for the opposition to accuse the government of ingratitude towards the category that had fought the Covid epidemic and induce the government to backtrack and find a compromise solution. In the provisions on social security included in the 2025 budget bill, the scandal is another. Just turn on the TV and watch a talk show on La7 to hear the government being reproached for an increase of only 1,8 euros per month on minimum pensions: an insult to pensioners that overrides another measure contained in the bill, namely the reinstatement of the criteria for ordinary revaluation based on the cost of living, manipulated for the needs of raising money quickly by all the governments that have succeeded one another in the last twenty years, with the sole exception of the one presided over by Mario Draghi. Therefore, the next adjustment of benefits to the inflation rate will take place on the basis of three different levels of increases as established by the Law No. 388 of 2000:
- 100% for those who receive less than three (four?) times the minimum allowance;
- 90% for those receiving between three (four?) and five times the minimum;
- 75% for those who earn more than five times the minimum.
But this executive seems to be unable to defend himself; the forces of the majority, accustomed to years of demagogic opposition, end up not even understanding what they need to be protagonists of. It would in fact be enough to explain that thatmodest amount corresponds with due respect at the applied revaluation rate in 2025. And it is not the first time (see the table for the years 2000-2024) that the increases are modest. In addition, in the increase of 1,8 euros there is something more that should not have been.
The table shows the automatic indexation percentages expected in the current year. To explain the mystery, the amount of the minimum pension was increased by a compensatory amount of inflation from 598 to approximately 614 euros, with the indication that this operation would be in force only for that year, due to the surge in inflation. However, when preparing the budget for 2025, the government realized that even by applying the correct scale to the non-increased amount of 598 euros, with inflation taken as a reference being equal to 1,6%, the amount of the minimum pension would end up being lower in 2025 than that paid in the current year; thus it has established that the revaluation will be equal to 2,2%, bringing an increase of only 3 euros compared to the 2024 amount. To recap: the revaluation will be 2,2% in 2025 and 1,3% in 2026. In 2024 the inflation indexation bar for these treatments had been set at 2,7%. With the decree of 10 November 2024, the revaluation rate set for next year was re-determined at 0,8% while no adjustment is due on the 2024 revaluation, confirmed at 5,4% already provisionally recognized. The result is that the increase will be only 1,8 euros.
The calculation is therefore not based on the cost of a coffee, but according to a tangle of rules and implementing measures that are mainly based on the inflation rate taken as a reference (subject to adjustment). The representatives of the majority should be able to explain these mechanisms when they are accused in debates. And above all, when a party of the majority - like Forza Italia - has set itself the goal of reaching 1.000 euros per month for minimum pensions, it should avoid saying that a modest increase of 1,8 euros per month (due to all other reasons) constitutes a step towards that goal.
