Citizenship income is for the M5s the ‘flag’ measure of the first Conte government, just as Quota 100 is for the Lega. Both measures are in the crosshairs of various criticisms, also and above all from the EU side. If the Court of Auditors certified the flop and the unsustainability of Quota 100, the DRC is above all the subject of a parliamentary dispute. There Cgia of Mestre has conducted a study on the cost for the state coffers of each job ‘created’ through the navigator process.
I study
Each job “created” with the Citizenship Income (RdC) cost the State at least 52,000 euros. Over double what a private entrepreneur spends annually for a full-time permanent worker which, on average, costs around 25,000 euros.
The CGIA explains that in the face of just over a million people in economic difficulty who, holders of citizenship income, have expressed their willingness to go to the office or factory, the latest data available tell us that only 152,000 have found a workplace thanks to the support of navigators.
Costs
The CGIA notes that assuming that the owners of the RdC received it for at least a year before entering the job market, thus receiving almost 7,000 euros, we can roughly estimate that the INPS has supported, for these 152,000 new employees, a expenditure of € 7.9 billion, equal to just over € 52,000 when compared to each single new employee. A cost that appears excessive for such a limited number of people who entered the labor market thanks to the RdC.
Placeability problem
The Citizenship Income, the CGIA says, “is not effective in combating unemployment”. Let’s be clear, observes the association, “in a civilized and advanced country, those who find themselves in a state of poverty and social exclusion must be helped, also through the provision of a citizenship income. It is quite another thing to hypothesize that economic aid could help the recipient of the measure enter the labor market. The data just described and those that we will illustrate later show the opposite ”. According to the CGIA, therefore, “whoever is in economic difficulty must absolutely be helped, but to combat unemployment the RdC has proved not to be an effective tool”.
From the first half of 2019 – the period in which the RdC came into force – until the end of this year, the state investment for this measure amounts to 19.6 billion 3: 3.8 in 2019, 7.2 in 2020 and 8.6 billion for the current year. An expenditure of 7.7 billion is expected for 2022. It is important to underline that for the year 2019 and 2020 the figures refer to those actually spent, while for the following years reference is made to the allocated resources.
The CGIA recalls that according to the Anpal, people who perceive the RdC are difficult to employ. The Agency, in fact, estimates that the probability of being unemployed after 12 months is close to 90 percent. This is attributable to the fact that this group of subjects has insufficient work experience behind them. The INPS, continues the Cgia, in fact, analyzing the contribution history of these people in the age group between 18 and 64 years, reports that only one third had a job in the past. Therefore, we often find ourselves faced with subjects at high risk of social exclusion, or in conditions of economic poverty and severe material deprivation. Finding a job for these people could even be a problem for them due to the precarious psycho-physical balance in which they find themselves.
The numbers
The CGIA again underlines that according to INPS data referring to August 2021, the recipients of the RdC were 3.5 million, equal to just under 1.5 million families. The average monthly amount disbursed is 579 euros. Among these 3.5 million income earners, the over 18s who have signed the Pact for Work (or have made themselves available to find a job), are – according to Anpal – 1.15 million4, while the Court dei Conti points out that those who have found stable employment are just over 152,000.
The data at the provincial level tell us, continues the CGIA, that in the provinces of Caserta (147,036) and Naples (555,646) there are a total of almost 703,000 beneficiaries of the RdC. If we compare the latter to the total number present in Italy (3,550,342), about 20 percent of the total recipients of this measure are concentrated in these 2 Campania provinces. As expected, the number of RdCs provided by INPS in large metropolitan areas is equally significant: in Rome they are 240.065, in Palermo 212.544, in Catania 169.250, in Milan 122.873, in Turin 104.638 and in Bari 92.233, concludes the association.
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