The year 2023 marked the surpassing of citizenship income, with an initiative by the Meloni government which, by introducing other mechanisms for inclusion in work and support for the most disadvantaged, shelved what had been the main measure of the 5 Star Movement. Vincenzo Caridi, general director of the INPS since 2022, provided some figures that attest to the weak effectiveness of the recipe. «From April 2019 until today, around 34 billion euros have been spent, with an average monthly value per family of 540 euros per month». When asked what didn’t work, Caridi replies: «The connection with active policies. Benefits for hiring workers have not exceeded 1,500 contracts from 2019 to date. The new measures will have a greater impact, thanks to Siisl (information system for social and labor inclusion ed.). The intersection between job supply and demand will be increasingly efficient and supported by artificial intelligence.”
These numbers sparked political reactions yesterday. According to the leader of the Fratelli d’Italia group in the Chamber, Tommaso Foti, the figures presented “clearly highlight the disastrous extent of the citizen’s income in their job placement role. Compared to just 1,500 incentivized contracts, the expense of this measure cost the Italian State 34 billion euros. And since the Year of Mathematics, when the citizen’s income was introduced and closes its doors this year, there is no opinion, each job cost us more than 22 million euros. An unacceptable waste of public resources intended by the 5 Star Movement and its president Conte.”
Again from the majority, the president of the deputies of Forza Italia, Paolo Barelli, observes: «Forza Italia has always supported that the citizen’s income should be surpassed, because in its original formulation it was not effective in including work and in addition it placed many people in conditions of not working and feeding the black market”. Then he adds: «Another thing is to help the weakest groups and those who cannot work, as we do through the inclusion allowance. Just as we believe it is necessary to increase minimum pensions . Which we also started to do.” The 5 Star Movement responds to center-right reflections, with Senator Elisa Pirro, who defines the numbers provided by Caridi as “partial and misleading”, which however “perfectly test the poor management of Employment Centers by the Regions, led by the vast majority of cases by the center-right.” A very popular theme in the 5 Star Movement is the role of regions.
In reality, there were many critical issues surrounding the measure, given a labor inclusion mechanism whose blockade has been certified for some time. Just look at the data from Inapp (National Institute for Public Policy Analysis) released last year, before the political elections, according to which only 4% of employees who found a job would have done so through the employment center (the rest through channels more “traditional”). Then there is the aspect, partially mentioned by Caridi, of the lack of intersection between supply and demand. This is where, for example, the IT “brain” promoted by the former president of Anpal, Mimmo Parisi, is located, which should have worked for this purpose, but never entered the system. Just like Puc, collective utility projects that Municipalities should have activated to involve beneficiaries, were only implemented in a very small percentage. Not to mention the long anecdote of fraud and misperceptions. The last one a few days ago, in Apulia: during an investigation into the fictitious hiring of workers, 53 beneficiaries of the subsidy were discovered without qualifications. Case studies that are different from each other, aspects that are different from each other, but when put together demonstrate the malfunction of the measure.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
