Inclusion Allowance and Work Training Support: the new post-Citizenship Income tools

More than 1.9 million people are supported by the Assegno di inclusione (Adi) or the Supporto per la formazione lavoro (Sfl), the two measures that have replaced the Reddito di cittadinanza (citizenship income) since 1 January. If the anti-poverty tool, Adi, with 750,000 households involved has already exceeded the target set by the government, for Sfl, the employability tool created last 1 September, the 140,000 people involved so far are far below the 322,000 estimated by the technical report of Decree 48 of 2023 for the whole of 2024 (out of a potential audience of 436,000).

To have a yardstick for comparison, in 2023 the citizenship income affected more than 2.7 million people (the peak in 2021 with more than 3.37 million). However, the comparison cannot ignore the fact that the requirements have changed and the two strata - between 'poor' and 'employable' - have been separated, with stricter controls, now concentrated in the ex ante phase.

What stands out is that a downward trend also remains for the new active labour market policy measure. If the trend of Sfl remains this way, it is likely that at the end of the year about 1 billion will be saved out of the dowry of about 7 billion per year of the two instruments. It is no coincidence that the Minister of Labour, Marina Calderone, explained that there are plans to raise the Isee requirements in order to enlarge the number of Adi beneficiaries.

Among the technicians of the Ministry of Labour, Inps, and Istat, the question is being asked as to what has become of the more than 650,000 former 'employable' who were receiving the Rdc. It is probable that a quota asked for the Adi as they could not be activated at work momentarily due to situations of fragility (about 150 thousand). Then 140,000 are believed to have switched to SFL, while about 100-150,000 are estimated to have a regular job, benefiting from the expansionary phase of the labour market (in July ISTAT counted 490,000 employed in July 2023). This new instrument, therefore, seems to support rather than hinder activation in the labour market. It remains to be understood where some 210-260 thousand 'employable' former income earners have ended up. It is thought that they are engaged in undeclared work and did not apply for Sfl, nor Adi because of the stricter controls made ex ante, or because they are not willing to participate in active labour policies that require constant commitment.

So far, 30,000 have found a job through the new Siisl platform, the information system for social and labour inclusion, which provides Adi, Sfl and welfare measures, which must be registered. Since September, more than 300,000 jobs have been uploaded for 120,000 vacancies by Job Centres and Employment Agencies; still low numbers that make it clear that there is still a large untapped potential. Well, Siisl should precisely serve to facilitate the matching of labour supply and demand. So much so that, with the Cohesion Decree, two important innovations are foreseen: the automatic registration of unemployed persons (Naspi and Discoll recipients) and the possibility for employers to publish vacancies there.