While all the debate on pensions in recent weeks has focused on whether or not to further increase social security expenditure already in flight due to inflation, the Ministry of the Economy has been working in silence to reduce expenditure under this heading.
The result emerges from the tables in the budget planning document sent to Brussels on Thursday evening, which treat pensions as a cover for the maneuver. The combined effect of the social security interventions leads to savings in the order of 1.5 billion. How is it possible?
The explanation is not complicated to find by doing the math. The budget law will make the “quota 103” debut for 2023 alone, given by the sum of 41 years of seniority and 62 of age. The estimated cost for this small early retirement window compared to the Fornero rules is 6-700 million. Added to the package is the extension of the women’s option and the Ape sociale, and a strengthened revaluation for minimum pensions (525 euros). The total cost, pending the annexes to the stamped budget law which has not yet emerged, is around one billion euros.
The work is still in progress, the text is expected for Monday in the Chamber where concerns about the risk of timing are growing: the Third Pole with Luigi Marattin is asking for a meeting on Monday of the Bureau of the Budget, evoking the risk of a provisional exercise.
The umpteenth revision of the rules on the indexation of checks largely compensates for these expenses and brings the pension balance of the maneuver back into positive territory.
Compared to the rules in force this year, the new six-band architecture does not change anything for pensions up to 4 times the minimum (about 2,1000 euros gross per month), then it becomes penalizing: more lightly up to 6 times the minimum (3,150 euros per month) then in progressively stronger form as the check goes up. It is true that the affected pensions are a minority on the total of social security treatments. But it is equally true that inflation is very high and therefore a change in the revaluation percentages has significant overall effects.