The generational pact that Italy needs does not concern the meeting between two or more corporations – that of retirees and that of Millennials or Generation Z – but the solidarity integration of two or more components (not just personal data) of the same Country. Antonio Mastrapasqua’s analysis
The corporate instinct also arises when it comes to pensions. And it is probably the strongest corporation in the country, made up of over 16 million “service holders” as they say in the bureaucratese. Almost a third of Italians collect a pension. A confirmation of Italy’s demographic crisis, before its public finance crisis. It may be because of this preponderant force of the “category”, but the issue of pensions continues to be subject to a narrative distortion that is anything but marginal.
It is true that among these 16 million there is the majority of union members (now all three major confederations have more retired members than active workers) and a significant portion of voters, but all this confirms the unnatural approach to the issue.
For years, retirement has been thought of as a social safety net. Is there a company or sector crisis? Early retirement. Is there a strong social category to protect? Baby pensions (we still pay the devastating effects: more or less 4 billion a year). While the pension should be “only” the wages deferred over time, when the ability to work becomes weaker with age. All this net of welfare “pensions”, which are not paid by workers’ contributions, but are a transfer from tax revenues. Another story.
Even around the “100 quota” a rhetoric stronger than the facts to tell was triggered. First, it seems that the predictions were wrong. Allocated 19 billion in three years, about 10 have been spent. It means that the “protection” that it was decided to lay out on subjects to allow an early exit – compared to the 67 years foreseen for old age – was imagined too abundant. Demand is radically different from supply.
And then, overnight the line originally envisaged in the Pnrr – “ln the subject of pensions, the transitional phase of application of the so-called Quota 100 will end at the end of the year and will be replaced by measures aimed at categories with tiring jobs” – we are plunging back into the regulatory squiggles: 102 quota, instead of 100 quota? No, 41 is better? A new rosary of steps and stairways – already seen – and of “safeguards”? I dare to say that this is not the problem.
The pension (and I am speaking of the contributory one, I am not referring to the sacrosanct ones – if controlled and given only to the truly needy – forms of assistance) cannot be removed from its natural reference bed: work. The pay-as-you-go system permanently links the payment of the pension to the contribution of active workers.
If there is no work (and decent paid) there is no contribution; if there is no contribution there is no pension. If work is not promoted, there is no quota to take. If young people don’t work there is no future for the country. There is an indissoluble link between young people’s work and retirement, not just their future retirement, but the retirement of the generation that precedes them, because they pay for it; as well as theirs will be paid by their children.
The problem of “quota 100” is not a new pension engineering to be set up in the “pension factory”, it is the work of young people. And the work of young people is not produced by early retirement of the less young, but by fostering entrepreneurship, simplifying the production system, easing constraints and taxation.
The new generational pact is not a “substitute” but an integrative one: it must integrate the activity of young people into the world of work. If the 9 billion saved by the forecasts of “quota 100” were destined for an exclusive Fund for the promotion of youth work (tax relief for the first three years? Partial tax exemption for companies hiring young people?) We would have made a more fair and sustainable for everyone, young and old, the whole country.
The generational pact that Italy needs does not concern the meeting between two or more corporations – that of retirees and that of Millennials or Generation Z – but the solidarity integration of two or more components (not just personal data) of the same Country.