Four more months at work: the INPS (the Italian national social security institute) circular, published in the Official Gazette (Gazzetta Ufficiale), clarifies what was laid down in 2010 by the decree of the then Minister of Welfare Maurizio Sacconi, under which the retirement age rises automatically with increasing worker longevity. From 1 January 2016 the automatic mechanism will take effect, changing the professional and personal agenda of many workers.
Take the case of female private-sector employees enrolled in the compulsory general insurance scheme.
They will have to reach the age of 65 years and 7 months to be eligible for the old-age pension. For their male colleagues, from 1 January next year the retirement threshold rises to 66 years and 7 months.
It should be noted that the rule adjusting the retirement age to life expectancy raises the point at which workers will leave work by more than the Fornero reform did: under the latter, women could retire on an old-age pension at 66 in 2018; in that year, under the Sacconi rule, they will have to wait until 66 years and 7 months. Consequently, the equalisation of retirement between men and women is brought forward by two years.
Things are, of course, no better for those who carry on an autonomous professional activity: for women the age rises next 1 January to 66 years and 1 month, until 2018, when they will jump, as for male and female employees, to 66 years and 7 months. For men the threshold rises immediately, from next year, to 66 years and 7 months. It should be remembered that the system in force, the contributions-based one, links pension benefits to the contribution pot (that is, payments revalued over the years). Anyone who pays on average less substantial contributions, as in the case of the self-employed compared with employees, faces on average lower pension benefits.
The Fornero reform nevertheless also offers the possibility of retiring before the deadline: in this case it is called an “early” pension and involves some penalties compared with the standard one. For men from 2016 to 2018 one will retire with 42 years and 10 months of contribution seniority; for women with 41 years and 10 months. From 2019 to 2020 the years of contributions needed to stop working “ahead of time” – already, as is evident, very long compared with the past – could rise further, on the basis of the results of the monitoring of the population’s life expectancy. As specified in the INPS circular, the requirement in question is “to be adjusted to life expectancy pursuant to Article 12 of Decree-Law no. 78 of 31 May 2010, converted, with amendments, by Law no. 122 of 30 July 2010”.
The issue also concerns those who have wisely joined a supplementary pension scheme, in order to bulk up first-pillar pension payments which, compared with the past, will be decidedly lower. With the lengthening of working life, collection of the second pension pillar also moves further out, both as regards the payment of annuities and as regards the total or partial redemption of the accumulated capital.
However, a recent rule aims to offset the effects of the rule laid down by the Sacconi decree and indicated in the INPS circular: the Competition Bill (Ddl Concorrenza) provides that it will be possible to access the supplementary pension in the event of cessation of work activity resulting in unemployment for more than 24 months (currently the rule says 48 months), up to a maximum of ten years ahead of the requirements for access to the first-pillar pension; currently, payment of pension fund benefits is possible only 5 years before retirement age. For years, indeed, there has been discussion of increasing the arrangements that allow workers to collect the “reserve pension” earlier than laid down by law; at the time of the “esodati” affair (workers left without either a job or a pension), various proposals were made to revise the moment at which the second-pillar pension is collected, but none of these was translated into a legislative text.
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