Meloni’s inclusion allowance will increase the incidence of absolute and child poverty, concludes an analysis by the European Commission – judged “partial” by the Italian government – which also underlines Italy’s notable gap with the EU on various employment indicators , including long-term employment, wage growth and working poverty rates.
The inclusion allowance includes a supplement of between 6,000 and 7,560 euros per year for families in which a member is disabled, is a minor, is at least 60 years old, is in a situation of hardship and is included in an official program of care and assistance.
A recent analysis by the European Commission, conducted as part of the European Semester, sheds light on the impact of the system.
It suggests that the measure will increase absolute and child poverty rates by 0.8 and 0.5 percentage points respectively compared to the previous income support scheme, the Citizenship Income.
Despite some positive aspects, the Commission states that restrictions on the eligibility criteria for the benefit will limit its effectiveness by restricting access to the benefit to specific demographic categories within households.
The Commission’s report refers to simulations carried out by the Bank of Italy using a static model. According to these simulations, the inclusion allowance would reduce the number of beneficiary families by 40% for families with Italian citizenship and by 66% for families with other citizenships.
The executive also raises concerns about employment, which lags behind the EU average.
Despite modest improvements in 2023, Italy maintains one of the highest shares of fixed-term contracts in the EU (16.5% compared to the EU average of 12.9% in 2022) and a high prevalence of part-time work. involuntary time (57.8% compared to the EU average of 21.5%), which mainly affects women.
Brussels is also examining Italian wages, which remain “structurally low”. Nominal wage growth of 12% between 2013 and 2022 is half the EU level of 23%, and the purchasing power of wages fell by 2%, compared to an increase of 2.5% in the EU.
In 2022, the at-risk-of-poverty rate among employed Italians will be among the highest in the EU, at 11.5%, compared to a European average of 8.5%.
“We have long expressed strong concern about this government’s policies regarding the fight against poverty and the judgment of the European Commission, unfortunately, confirms our assessments. We renew our invitation to the Government and the Minister [del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali Marina Elvira] Calderone to reconsider their position and start a dialogue”, wrote Santo Biondo, member of the national secretariat of the UIL, the Italian Trade Union Confederation.
The Italian government immediately contested the Commission’s analysis, arguing that the EU study is static and partial, not considering the activation dynamics generated by the new measures and employment growth in Italy.
“The effects of the active policies introduced by the government cannot be fully assessed on this basis, since the citizen’s income has been replaced not only by the inclusion allowance but also by the support for training and work (Sfl), which carries out an essential role in supporting employment”, commented the government.
However, Maurizio Franzini, professor of economic policy at the La Sapienza University of Rome and member of the assembly of the Inequalities and Diversity Forum, declared to Euractiv Italia: “The model used takes into account only the most restrictive criteria for access to the AdI; therefore it does not consider possible changes in behavior. In particular, those who no longer have access to the RdC could be ‘pushed’ to look for employment, emerging from poverty thanks to the income thus earned”.
“The government complains that these effects are not considered but it is certainly not easy to estimate their extent now. There is no shortage of reasons, then, to doubt whether they are sufficient to offset the negative effect of the more stringent requirements. The main one is, perhaps, that from investigations into the characteristics of RdC recipients it appears that many are not employable. But to have reliable assessments we need to wait,” he concludes.
(Alessia Peretti | Euractiv.it)
Read the article in English here.
