”Quota 97” is equivalent to an age of 62 years and 35 years of contributions in order to retire on a pension. No twenty, thirty or forty year old and even many fifty year olds who have lost a job in recent years will ever get there. The Everest of “quota 92” is, as everyone knows, temporary. It will be updated over time to avoid default. It will become “quota 100”, then 105. Getting ever higher, while what will get smaller are the number of years of possible contributions for the precarious workers, for those taken on to do a project for a limited number of months, or for the people who are currently unemployed. If all goes well, they will settle down with 18 to 20 years. To get to “quota 100” you will thus need to be 80 years old and have 20 years of contributions. This is an exceptional way of taking us for a ride.
The INPS contributions are TODAY being paid by workers who will NEVER retire with a pension. That money is being used to pay the “baby pensions”, the “super pensions”, the “double and triple pensions” and the pensions of the parliamentarians. Amato’s pension of 32,000 euro a month, the pensions of the regional councillors, Veltroni’s “annuity” of 9014 euro, the pensions of those who have been at home since retiring at the age of 40. Why pay the pensions of the others without retiring on a pension? It doesn’t make any sense. A maximum limit of 3,000 euro a month and the age of 65 seems reasonable to me. If the ceiling were to be applied, the State would save 7 billion euro a year and everyone could get access to a pension without having a “quota”. I see no reason at all why a young person has to pay pension contributions to INPS knowing that he will never himself get a pension. The obligatory payment to INPS has to be abolished. Let each person save how much they want so that they can use that for their old age. INPS is a ramshackle organization that has used the pension money to do everything. It’s a political institution not one that give guarantees to the tax payers. The money from INPS has been used, among other things, for laid off workers. When Fiat was losing money for decades, its employees were paid by INPS, that is, by us. Who knows whether Minchionne is aware of this?
We need to be clear about pensions. There has to be a minimum amount for the indigent (1,000 euro?) and a maximum ceiling for everyone else and no raising the age when you can get a pension. If it’s not going to work like that, it’b be better for INPS to close down and the young people and the generation of almost-young people should stop paying contributions for a pension that they will never receive.
There are 19 million pensioners in Italy and about the same number of workers who are paying them their pensions by making monthly contributions. Anyone who has not retired will work (if they have the good fortune to have good health and to have a job) right up until they die. This situation cannot go on. Even a child would understand that. And those who are paying contributions to INPS have already understood. The contributions have become a tax for the more fortunate old people. Pension reform has to be for everyone or for no one. For those who have already retired and for those who have the right to retire. Right now we cannot have rights that have already been acquired.