The story of thirty-year-olds destined to retire at 70 is becoming recurring news. The Ansa agency published it last November and relaunched it on Tuesday 11 June, more or less on the same basis: retirement at 70 is one of the possible social security scenarios for someone born in 1994 which can indicate Pensami, the simulator made available by INPS, recently updated with the non-substantial changes provided for by the 2024 Budget Law.
The unlikely scenario of retirement at 70
The 70 year threshold has its impact and is useful for “making headlines”, but it must be said that this scenario does not seem to be the most probable: in the simulation carried out by Ansa he will be able to retire from work at 70 years old, a thirty-year-old who has recently started working and in 2061, when he will be almost 67, will not have yet reached the requirements for early retirement: at least twenty years of contributions it’s a contribution amount capable of guaranteeing him an allowance equal to the minimum expected each year by the government (for 2024 the parameter is three times the social allowance, i.e. 1603.23 euros). It is clear that this is the case of a career that can be defined as very intermittent, if not exactly problematic: if between now and 2061 the current thirty-year-old has not put together 240 months of contributions it means that he will have worked at most for 19 of the next 37 years, that is, just over one year in two.
In any case, according to the INPS simulator, today’s thirty-year-old will be able to obtain the old age pensionprovided that both requirements have been met, a 69 years and 10 months of age. So almost at 70 years of age, compared to the 67 years that a worker with the same type of working career, but born in 1956, could reach. This is because the age for the old-age pension, according to the provisions of the Dini reform of 1995 and then perfected by the Monti-Fornero reform, must be periodically adjusted to life expectancy which, hopefully, in forty years will be longer than the current one.
When 70 years can also be an optimistic scenario
The main problems for the pension of that now thirty-year-old worker will presumably be others. The more likely it will be the amount of the check: Italy is one of the few G20 countries in which real salaries, i.e. those that take inflation into account, have been decreasing in the last twenty years. Much of this contraction is “borne” by the younger ones, who often enter the job market with low wages and precarious conditions, incapable of allowing the construction of a long-term life plan and of leading to a decent social security situation.
But there is also a more general problem of system tightness: in the current demographic scenarios of Istat, the Italian population will reduce from 59 million people in 2022 to 54.4 million in 2050. In 2060, when our thirty-year-old will be on the threshold of the early retirement milestone, in Italy there should be 51 .2 million inhabitants, of which 25.7 are of working age (between 25 and 67 years), 10 million young people (under 24 years) and 15.6 million elderly people, i.e. people over 68 years of age . Supporting the social security system in such an old country, with one potential pensioner for every 1.6 possible workers, will be quite a challenge. It seems difficult that Italy will not have to provide new pension reforms in the coming decades, with the prospect of retirement at 70 which could also become desirable.
Social security itinerariesan independent research center that every year presents the balance sheet of the national social security system, explains that the system seems sustainable for the next 10-15 years, with a balance that the president Alberto Brambilla defines “subtle”. However, adjustments to the effective retirement age are needed, which in Italy today is around 63 thanks to exemptions and incentives, the maintenance of the employment of older workers, active policies for training and prevention to plan for a healthy old age. The study center calls for “a serious review of production models and the labor market” for a country that “is currently navigating by sight, without a compass, in the face of the greatest demographic transition of all time, with a large part of public spending directed towards subsidies and welfare”.
