If the main dish of the first Budget law of the government Draghi it will be the taxman, in the form of a first income tax cut, the politically hottest chapter is the one that concerns the Basic income. Only one will arrive in the cabinet on Tuesday signal aimed at sedating the cheeks of center right e Italy alive, who have just barely digested a € 200 million refinancing and will now have to give the green light to an allocation of four to five times as much, necessary to guarantee an average of 570 euros per month to the current ones 1.4 million nuclei beneficiaries. There is talk of a strengthening of controls estimates, making available to theInps databases to which it cannot now access, and a check cut in case of refusal of the second offer of congruous work. But the substantial changes to the measure desired by the 5 Star Movement will be included in the maneuver later: the report of the Income Assessment Committee established by the Minister of Labor dem Andrea Orlando and led by Chiara Saraceno, arriving by the beginning of November. However, it is easy to imagine its contents: the creator of the Alliance against poverty is part of the group Cristiano Gori and the sociologist Nunzia De Capite that for Caritas respectively oversaw the monitoring of the July RDC and the chapter of the 2021 report on poverty dedicated to the proposed amendments to make the subsidy more effective in reaching people in poverty and more functional to the activation of the earners able to work (who are in any case a minority).
The boom in beneficiaries and rising costs – Political evaluations on restyling cannot ignore data. Last year, the pandemic swelled the number of people like never before absolute poor, climbed to 5.6 million. The income, as recognized by Orlando, has helped to plug thesocial emergency reaching in 2020 beyond 3.5 million people against 2.5 million in the pre Covid period. With relative increased spending, which this year has not shown any signs of declining despite the economic recovery and the normalization of the health framework thanks to vaccines. Because who lost a job during the crisis precarious, or while working earns so little from being one step away from poverty, it continues to trudge despite the GDP running. The result is that in 2021 1.4 billion additional appropriations were needed compared to the 7.4 billion foreseen in the 2019 Budget Law, bringing total expenditure to 8.8 billion. For next year the funds already in the budget amount to 7.6 billion: with unchanged parameters, approximately one billion will have to be allocated for the maneuver.
The changes requested by Caritas: non-EU citizens, residents in the North, numerous nuclei – Going further seems impossible. Yet the blanket is still short: according to Caritas the 56% of families in absolute poverty remains excluded from the measure. Fault of access parameters that penalize who resides at North (with the same number of components and income, a family living in Milan is poorer than one in the province of Crotone), who had put away some savings (the ceiling is 6 thousand euros for the head of the family plus 2 thousand for each additional component) and all non-EU citizens who have resided in Italy for less than 10 years. Not only that: the large families are penalized compared to single earners. How to fix it without blowing up the costs? The solution is relatively simple, explains the responsible one in the 2021 Report on Poverty and Social Exclusion Social policies at Caritas Nunzia De Capite, who sits on the committee headed by Saraceno. Enough widen the stitches for families foreigners and for those residing at North, raise the thresholds of movable assets and adopt one non-discriminatory equivalence scale towards larger families but at the same time narrowing the limits on other fronts: for example lower the thresholds for i single and the couples. In July, Professor Cristiano Gori, scientific director of the latest Caritas Report on anti-poverty policies dedicated entirely to income, making the same proposals, he highlighted that “the smallest nuclei are those for which the most is spent and at the same time include most of beneficiaries not in poverty“: i singles make up 46% of non-poor earners, couples 21%. The modification will obviously have to take into account the political stakes, such as the request of the M5s not to go below in any case 500 euro.
The cross with the single allowance for families – De Capite, more generally, asks to take into account that the income is part of a mosaic of measures for people in conditions of economic hardship and must be harmonized with the others, as reaffirmed by l‘OECD in the latest report on Italy. Crucial in this sense will be the entry into operation, in January 2022, of thesingle allowance for families, which will benefit the numerous nuclei compensating at least in part the very disadvantageous equivalence scale that assigns only 1000 euros of income to a couple with three children (net of the rent contribution). In the same logic, i local social services and the territorial welfare, hiring social workers and administrative staff. Also because it is up to these services to take charge of the vast majority of income recipients – two-thirds – that for age, health reasons or educational level she is not deemed to be able to find a job.
Reintegration into the world of work: government studies décalage – Then there remains the most divisive and discussed front, the one that gave rise to fake news and controversies on the alleged (and denied by the data) “sofa effect” of income: reintegration into work of those 1.15 million beneficiaries that theAnpal considers employable. In addition to the enhancement of the controls, one of the interventions being studied by the government is the reduction aid in case of I decline of two job offers: a gap which should discourage opportunistic behavior and is set to go into effect next year along with the plan Employability guarantee for workers, the expected reform of active policies. However, it must be said that Caritas and the Alliance Against Poverty – like Professor Saraceno – suggest adopting a different, less punitive approach: allowing heap at least partial between subsidy and earned income, as happens in France e Great Britain.
The hypotheses of changes to the definition of an adequate offer – A road that would make it more acceptable move down – as he assumed Orlando – l‘rod which defines which offers are to be considered “congruent”And must therefore be counted in the three after which the forfeiture takes effect. Today, first of all, the work must be within a radius of 100 kilometers if it is the first offer and you have received the benefit for less than a year (250 km if it is the second offer or you have been earners for over a year), then the assignment lasts at least three months and that the salary is higher than 858 euros per month, conditions not discounted in the Italian labor market. Being able to add the subsidy and salary, at least for a while, would avoid that in order to reduce the audience of earners, we end up expanding that of working poor.