Con the rapid aging of the population and an increasingly small number of active workers, expenditure for pensions It is rapidly approaching levels that put a strain on the country’s economic estate. In this scenario, the government is evaluating an important revision of the pension funding mechanism, proposing a change involving the severance paythe severance indemnity, a voice considered so far considered a private law of the worker.
In 2025, Italian pension expenditure will touch the record figure of 289.4 billion euros, equal to 15.3% of the national GDP. This data, underlines the growing pressure that the public social security system is undergoing. Italy, in fact, is confronted with a double emergency: a continuous drop in birth rate accompanied by a significant increase in life expectancy. Eurostat highlights that, in 2050 there will be only one pensioner for every two active workers, a proportion that It risks seriously unbalanced the relationship between contributions paid and social security exits. Without structural interventions, the expenditure for pensions, which today absorbs more than a seventh of GDP, is destined to increase further, aggravating the load on public finances.
Pensions, TFR to INPS: necessary reform or risk for workers?
In an attempt to lighten this pressure, the Government has put a reform on the table that concerns one of the key elements of workers’ salary: the severance indemnity. The idea, put forward by the Undersecretary for Labor Claudio Durigon, provides that The TFR is no longer anticipated or transferred to complementary pension funds, but detained by INPS. These resources would thus be used to strengthen the public pension system. The goal is twofold: on the one hand, reduce the structural weight of social security expenditure, on the other hand facilitating access to the pension advance, offering the most margin workers to exit first from the labor marketwithout further burning on the public coffers.
The government aims to use severance pay to strengthen public pension, but this paradigm change raises many questions and not a few doubts (Getty)
How management would change
Currently, workers can choose to leave the severance pay in the company or pay it to a complementary pension fund. Companies with more than 50 employees are obliged to pour the severance pay to a treasury fund managed by INPS. The proposed novelty consists in the ampliament and transform this mechanism: The accumulated funds would not simply remain “parked”, But they would be invested by INPS to generate annuities to be allocated to the integration of the public pension. The reform would also intend to mitigate the rigidity of the so -called 3,2 multiplier, which today limits the early exit from work only to those who have matured a pension allowance at least triple compared to the social allowance. Using the TFR To integrate the pension, More workers could benefit from an early exit.
Goodbye to the advance of the TFR?
If the proposal was approved, the right to TFR accrued would remain guaranteed, but it would be tied until the time of retirement. As a result, the possibility of anticipating these sums for reasons such as the purchase of the first home, renovation works or extraordinary health costs would disappear. The severance pay would thus lose the function of “economic bearing” for emergenciesbecoming a tool exclusively dedicated to social security. It should be emphasized that this measure does not provide for the creation of new funds or administrative structures: It would be a accounting operation carried out through the tools already existing in INPSto be defined in the next legislative measures.
Young people and social security: open challenge
Another central theme in the debate, It is the involvement of the new generations in the social security systemparticularly in complementary pension. The INPS indicates that only a quarter of the insured is under 35 years old, while the adhesion of young people to forms of supplementary social security is limited, touching just 19% of the under 35. This figure highlights a risk for the future stability of the system, which could weaken itself without adequate participation of young people, intended to finance the pensions of the older generations with their contributions.
TFR to INPS, a controversial reform
The proposal to integrate the TFR into public social security management, undoubtedly represents a bold attempt to face a crisis that can no longer be ignored. However, This paradigm change raises many questions and not a few doubts.
If on the one hand, in fact, the need to lighten the growing financial pressure on the pension system is evident, on the other it is equally true which risks being a compromise that sacrifices workers’ rights on the altar of public finance. Certainly, since it is not just about deciding how to manage pensions, but what future you want to guarantee those who work today and, also, tomorrow, an open and more than transparent debate will be needed.
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