Emergency income: new maxi-subsidy on the way

The government is planning to invest approx 6 billion euros to create a "emergency income"(Rem), which would enhance and broaden the subsidy of 600 euros launched with the Cura Italia decree of 11 March. The amount of the check could be the same, but, unlike the first allowance, the Rem it wouldn't be a one-off – would last for as long as the crisis triggered by the coronavirus – and would cover up to 10 million people, about double the number of workers reached so far. The audience of beneficiaries would therefore include different categories:

• VAT matches
• professionals
• craftsmen
• traders
• collaborators
• irregular
• precarious and intermittent (including cleaners, carers and babysitters)
• seasonal (waiters, cleaners, lifeguards and more)
• workers who have finished their unemployment benefits (Naspi or Discoll)
• agricultural workers
• entertainment workers

Obviously, the 600 euros will also be extended to those who, by 15 April, receive the check relating to the first subsidy (that of Cura Italia), valid for the month of March.

Some exponents of the 5 Star Movement would like to widen the mesh of Citizenship Income, for example by temporarily deleting the income and assets requirements established by the 2019 law (Cura Italia has already suspended other conditions, such as the obligation to accept a job offer). However, Palazzo Chigi and the Ministry of the Economy do not share this approach: given the emergency conditions - is the reasoning - reforming an ordinary instrument would not be the most effective way; to intervene quickly and incisively in support of those who find themselves without an income, a new measure is needed, expressly conceived for the period of crisis.

At the same time, the government will have to renew and extend the redundancy fund (of all types: ordinary, by way of derogation, Fis) from the 9 weeks envisaged so far at least until the 31 July, the day on which the national emergency declared on January 31 should officially end.