The topic of pensions has now become a daily catchphrase. The most excruciating "cry of pain" concerns the treatment reserved for young people who, after a working life characterized by periods of discontinuity and precariousness, will receive, late in life, an inadequate allowance with respect to the most basic needs of life. Beyond the divinatory claims of that media operation which is the "orange envelope" (predicting to a young man what his retirement will be forty years later - and therefore the life that awaits him in this period of time - is equivalent to reading in the sphere of crystal) more serious scholars (see the essay by Angelo Marano in n.3/2015 of the journal Politiche sociali of Il Mulino) point out that, in the contributory system, those who have an income of one thousand euros a month (equal to half of the average one), despite a contribution rate of 33% they will need at least 20-25 years of payments to receive, as pensioners, a benefit equal to the amount of the social allowance.
This means, in practice, that the first 20-25 years of contributions will not give any real benefit in terms of expected pension benefits. These subjects, therefore, will remain in practice confined within the perimeter of assistance. However, only warm ''crocodile tears'' are shed towards the younger generations, because all the proposals that inflame the debate (from the safeguard for the so-called exodus, to the flexibility of retirement, passing through the women's option) are are aimed indiscriminately at elderly people who, for some more or less valid reason, would like to cross the threshold of retirement in advance.
Important resources are dedicated to these solutions: around 12 billion when fully operational for 170 "displaced persons", while to finance the women's option which could be used, in two years, by around 30 female employees and self-employed, it has been tampered with, for the same period, the automatic revaluation system of checks for all pensioners (16,3 million). With regard to outgoing flexibility, it is necessary to take into account a higher annual expenditure of between 5 and 7 billion depending on the requirements and parameters identified. Furthermore, Italy is the country in Europe which has the lowest employment rate in the cohorts between 55 and 64 years of age, while it is the one that spends the most on pensioners in that same age group. If we then look at the data on the effective age of retirement, we discover that early/seniority benefits are far greater in number than old-age benefits and are received at an average effective age of around 60 years.
The statistics of the Observatory on INPS pensions - if you want to read them carefully - soundly deny another representation of reality that has by now become a sort of cliché that no one dares to question anymore: the one according to which, after the Fornero reform, the male and female workers are no longer able to cross the coveted threshold of quiescence except as emaciated and exhausted old men. The data on the actual retirement age, in 2015, however, bear witness to how much barbarism and what demagogy is poisoned in the pension debate. Suffice it to recall that, last year, considering all the schemes surveyed (private employees and self-employed workers) the number of early old-age/retirement pensions (thanks also to the generous exemptions granted to the beneficiaries of the exodus safeguards) was higher ( 157 thousand) of those for old age (124 thousand). In the case of dependent work, there was even a double difference (104 +1,5 early retirements compared to 56 old-age benefits). The average age at the effective date (including private and public employees and self-employed workers) was 60,5 years (as a total of men and women): essentially, 1,4 years more since 2010; 0,6 years more since 2012, when the Fornero reform came into force. Of course, the increase in the effective old age was more significant (2,5 years), due, however, to the start of the equalization (already carried out in the public sector) of the age requirement of women to that of men. And, in fact, while workers had, in 2015, an increase of 0,8 years since 2010 (0,4 years since 2012), that of female workers was respectively equal to 2,9 years and 2,2 years.
The statistics for the first quarter of 2016 also confirm the usual trend: pensions may have decreased in number, but seniority pensions are equal to three times the old-age allowances. This is, in short, why young people will get nothing from what "goes through the convent" of the current debate, if not an even more onerous pension system to support with their contributions in the trap of pay-as-you-go funding. If there are resources, have the courage to rethink the pension system according to the characteristics of today's labor market.
It is necessary to combine policies in favor of youth employment (jobs act and de-contribution) with a reorganization of the pension system whose cornerstones could be the following:
– 1) the new rules should only apply to new hires and new employees (therefore for young people);
– 2) the payments would be made on the basis of a uniform rate – and equal to 25-26% – for employees, self-employed and semi-subordinated, giving rise to a mandatory contributory pension;
– 3) a basic treatment would be instituted for these workers, equal to the amount of the social allowance and financed by general taxation which, in due time, would act as a base for the contributory pension or play the role of minimum income for those who have no been able to secure a pension;
– 4) as regards the financing of the supplementary pension, the voluntary payment of the consideration of certain points of the compulsory contribution rate would be permitted, in order to diversify the risk.
The proposal would permanently make it more convenient to make new hires thanks to the provision of a reduced tax rate for companies by as much as 7-8 points (and therefore thanks to the decrease in the cost of labor as the other side of the coin of a de-contribution made structural). The basic pension would compensate, for workers, the minor credits according to the contributory model. The reform, as a whole, would concern a maximum of 400 units a year (the new employment, against a stable restart of the economy). And, therefore, it would present a much higher degree of sustainability (and lower and more gradual costs over time) than that deriving from the projects under discussion. It will then be necessary to think of a compensatory mechanism, somewhat retroactive, for those who in recent years have remained prisoners of a system that did not guarantee them, such as, for example, those registered exclusively for separate management at INPS.
