2027 Budget, 5 billion for households: priority given to the purchasing power of the most vulnerable
This decision comes at a time when incomes are once again falling. According to Istat, purchasing power fell by 0.9 per cent between the first and second quarters of the year
Key points
A safeguard for households’ purchasing power, ‘with a particular focus on the most vulnerable’. This is the priority that the 2027 Budget Policy Document has assigned to the forthcoming budget, and the table on the impact of the measures translates this into figures: the item ‘Family policies and social spending’ accounts for 0.21 per cent of GDP in 2027, approximately 5 billion, the largest of all expenditure items. This share then falls to 0.12 per cent in 2028 and to 0.11 per cent in 2029.
Incomes that are struggling
This decision comes at a time when incomes are once again falling. At Monday’s hearing on the Dpfp, Istat reported that in the second quarter, household disposable income rose by 0.4 per cent, compared with a 1.4 per cent increase in the consumer price deflator: purchasing power thus fell by 0.9 per cent compared with the previous quarter. The recovery of wages relative to prices, which had been continuing uninterrupted since the end of 2023, has also come to a halt: on average for 2026, contractual wages are set to rise by 2.5 per cent, compared with a realised inflation rate of 3.0 per cent.
The measures
The Government’s focus – having so far merely outlined the framework of the forthcoming Budget Bill – is on measures such as confirming the 15 per cent tax rate on allowances for night work, public holidays and shift work, up to 1,500 euros per year, and increasing the bonus for working mothers with two children and an income below 40,000 euros, from 60 to 80 euros per month. Also on the agenda are the continuation of the newborn bonus, the nursery bonus and support for essential expenses, as well as the launch of a pension savings scheme for newborns.
For the most vulnerable households, the Dpb highlights the measures already in place: the Inclusion Allowance, extended to categories previously excluded; the renewal of the ‘Dedicata a te’ card for low-income households; and the one-off contribution towards utility bills for recipients of the social bonus. According to Istat, in 2025, 29.4 per cent of households had reduced either the quantity or quality of the food they purchased (31.1 per cent in 2024), and the equivalent expenditure of the fifth of households spending the most remained five times that of the fifth spending the least.
