Pensions, Quota 41 moves away after the Defence

With expenditure set to reach 337.4 billion by the end of 2024, an increase of 5.8 per cent over 2023, and for the period between 2025 and 2027 estimated to continue rising at an average annual rate of 2.9 per cent, the room for new measures on early retirement appears almost nil. The Def 'light' presented by the government seems to push away Quota 41, dear to the League, which at least in 2025 should still remain at the pole. Not least because the Meloni-Giorgetti economic and financial document openly includes Quota 100, introduced by the 'Conte 1' executive precisely as a result of the Carroccio's strong pressure, among the causes of the rush of pension exits and of the numerous pension accesses. Which in the five-year period 2019-23 turned out to be even higher than in the period before the launch, at the end of 2011, of the Fornero reform.

Having risen, almost out of all proportion, by 7.4% in 2023, and set to grow by 5.8% in 2024 under the pressure of the costs of indexing cheques to inflation (despite the partial tightening triggered by the current government), pension spending will continue to march at a fast pace in the coming years. The Defence 'tendential' estimates indicate 345.7 billion in 2025 (+2.4%), 356.3 billion in 2026 (+3.1%) and 368.1 billion in 2027 (+3.3%), when the weight of pension outlays on GDP is expected to be 15.5%, the same level as the previous year. And the State's General Accounting Office, in the special focus included in the Def, reiterates that from 2029 onwards, "the ratio of expenditure to GDP will start to increase again until it reaches 17% in 2040".

The Ragioneria confirms that the surge in expenditure expected over the next 15 years is 'essentially due to the increase in the ratio of the number of pensions to the number of people in employment induced by the demographic transition, which is only partially offset by the increase in the minimum requirements for access to retirement'. The Mef's experts also point out that 'the effect due to the increase in the number of pension treatments outweighs that related to the containment of pension amounts exerted by the gradual application of the contribution-based calculation system over the entire working life'.

The Defence Report presented by the government dwells on several occasions on the negative impact that the many exceptions to the Fornero law, starting with the use of Quota 100, have had on spending trends. In particular, it is pointed out that in the five-year period 2019-2023 access to retirement 'at levels higher than those of the period prior to the reform of late 2011' was recorded because 'the physiological increase in access due to the accrual of the requirements and the progressive effects of the demographic transition were added to the effects deriving from facilitations and expansions of the possibilities of access to early retirement in discontinuity with the reform process implemented in previous decades'. The reference to Quota 100 is evident. A measure that was later replaced, with less heavy repercussions on public accounts, by Quota 102 and Quota 103, this year in a 'penalised' version with the binding link to the contribution method, provided for by the last budget law.

The future of the social security chapter will be clarified at this point by the Defence Update expected next September. But already from the 'tendential' picture the spaces for new interventions seem very narrow. For the new pension reform the timeframe therefore seems to be getting longer. And, therefore, also those for the possible introduction of Quota 41 always in a 'contributory' version. But in the autumn the government will still have to decide what to do in 2025, given that the 'penalised' Quota 103 should run out at the end of 2024, as well as Ape sociale and Opzione donna in the format for a very small number of people. The executive might opt for an extension of the current 'bridge measures', or look at some corrective measures, such as Quota 104 (exit possibility with 63 years and 41 years of contributions).