There are not only the CBI e share 100 to haunt INPS dreams. This year the social security institution is also called upon to carry out another mission: to recover the extra money that Italian pensioners have collected due to the indexation block. What does it mean? Let's go in order.
To balance the public finances, the yellow-green government has imposed – through an amendment to the latest budget law – a new three-year freeze on the indexation of pensions exceeding three times the minimum (1.539 euros gross per month). It means that 58% of pension benefits will not be fully revalued taking into account inflation, a measure normally used to keep the purchasing power of retirees stable.
The scheme in effect this year is as follows:
- 97% indexing on the part exceeding 3 times and up to 4 times the minimum;
- 77% indexing on the part exceeding 4 times and up to 5 times the minimum;
- 52% indexing on the part exceeding 5 times and up to 6 times the minimum;
- 47% indexing on the part exceeding 6 times and up to 8 times the minimum;
- 45% indexing on the part exceeding 8 times and up to 9 times the minimum;
- 40% indexing on the part exceeding 9 times the minimum.
This plant is less penalizing than the mechanism in force from 2013 to 2018, but, if the yellow-green government hadn't intervened, from 2019 the old indexing scheme would come back into force, which provided for only two brackets: 90% indexation on the part exceeding 3 times and up to 5 times the minimum and 75% on the part exceeding 5 times the minimum.
The new percentages were to come into force in January, but the Italian bureaucracy has slow times, so in these first months of 2019 retirees received a larger allowance than they should. Now INPS must get this money back plus: it will do it retroactively, in a single withdrawal.
How much are we talking about? Not very much: it is estimated that the cut is worth around 170 euros a year for pensions of just over two thousand euros a month. Money which, for the public coffers, should translate into savings of 3,6 billion by 2021.
On a technical level, the question does not present uncertainties: the problem is political. In fact, the government has no intention of adopting such an unpopular measure before European elections scheduled for May 26.
Except,"the longer you delay, the higher the balance will be”, as pointed out by Tommaso Nannicini and Chiara Gribaudo, the two MPs of the Democratic Party who presented an urgent parliamentary question on the matter.
Meanwhile, Pasquale Tridico has been appointed commissioner of theINPS, while Adriano Morrone will be sub-commissioner. The appointment decree was signed today by the Minister of Labour, Luigi Di Maio, and by the Minister of Economy, Giovanni Tria.
