Almost 70 billion more in just six years. It is the surge in pension spending between the beginning of 2019, marked by the entry into force of Quota 100, and this year, in which there is a still significant impact on the accounts of the indexation of payments to inflation. But from the government’s estimates, contained in the “light” Def just presented, it emerges that the pension bill becomes even heavier by extending the forecast horizon to 2027: +99.6 billion, with pension expenditures expected to reach 368, 1 billion (15.5% of GDP) compared to 268.5 at the end of 2018 (15.2% of GDP). And already at the end of 2024 spending should reach 337.4 billion (15.6% of GDP) with a growth of 5.8% over the previous twelve months. An expenditure that is even more extensive when taking into consideration the entire chapter of social benefits in cash, which includes allowances for families, subsidies and other support tools: from 2018 the expected increase at the end of 2024 is 98, 6 billion and should further rise to 132.5 billion in 2027.
What the Def says
In the same Def it is in fact noted that up until the end of 2023, spending was mainly driven by the measures “aimed at bringing forward retirement compared to the ordinary requirements” (i.e. the “Quotas”, starting from Quota 100), those for the fight against poverty (such as Citizenship Income) and family support interventions. The “regulatory innovations of a non-temporary nature” have produced on average in the period between 2019 and 2023 a greater impact of spending on social benefits in cash on the GDP of approximately one point per year.
Data that leaves the chapter of pensions, as well as that of welfare in general, among the spending sectors considered “special supervision” by the MEF technicians. It is no coincidence that the Def clearly states that, despite the tightening of check revaluations triggered by the budget law for 2023 (tightened for the higher ones by the last budget) «spending remains at high levels both for the significant measure of the indexation to be recognized to the treatments deriving from the large increase in the inflation rate for the years 2022-2023 and, in particular, for the multi-year and structural costs resulting from the non-temporary regulatory measures adopted in the period 2019- 2022″.
How it will go in the next few years
An almost explicit reference, the latter, also to Quota 100 (which was later replaced by Quota 102 and Quota 103, currently in a penalized version). Precisely the many exceptions to the Fornero law, but not only that, have favored an almost uninterrupted increase in the incidence of spending on social benefits in cash on the GDP. Over the next three years too, the rise in expenditure for social benefits will continue, on average, at an annual rate of 2.5%. Which will rise to 2.9% for pensions only. Non-negligible rates of change in expenditure, for social security “conditioned”, as highlighted in the Def, “by the revaluation of pensions at prices, the number of newly liquidated pensions, the termination rates and the reconstitution of existing pensions”. Not only that: the General Accounting Office of the State, in the specific focus included in the Economic and Financial Document, confirms that from 2029 onwards, the weight of spending and GDP will tend to increase significantly with a peak of 17% in 2040. A trend essentially due, the MEF technicians reiterate, to the increase in the ratio between the number of pensions and the number of employed induced by the demographic transition, which will only be partially compensated by the increase in the minimum requirements for access to retirement.
#Pensions #spending #billion #years #quotas #revaluations
2024-04-15 20:08:34