More employment but more poverty: what happens in Italy? (Employee work and taxes have to do with it)

(This piece was taken from Review the first hour of the courier evening)

Elena Tebano recalled, In yesterday’s reviewthe worrying data (euphemism) of Istat report «Lifesty and income of families of families. Years 2023-2024 », according to which over 13 and a half million residents in Italy (23.1% of the total) in 2024 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (In families with at least one foreign citizen the percentage is 37.5%, but downhill from 40.1% of the previous year, while increasing slightly for the components of families made up of Italians alone: ​​21.2% compared to 20.7% in 2023).

How we arrived here

Francesco Riccardi, In an editorial on Avveniretry to understand « how we have come so far, because progress and development of the twentieth century have stopped ». And above all, how compatible today all this with other data, those that testify to an employment rate that has never been so highan unemployment reduced to the minimums and an inactivity still very consistent but still falling.

The work is now poor

«The simplest answer is that the work itself – the dependent one – has impoverished: in remuneration but also in quality for a good part of the Italians. Because the economic system, especially the industrial sector that was the flagship and the first engine of the country, has frayed. We have lost many great champions, we remain anchored to a system of small companies, flexible yes but not able to be at the forefront in the development of new technologies and processes, we serve poor system productivity. The services did not support creating sufficient value, specialization and innovation ».

Wages have lost purchasing power

In fact, always of These days is the news which, according to the annual Report of the International Labor Organization (OIL) Italy is the G20 country where wages have undergone the strongest loss of purchasing power From 2008 to today: -8.7%. In France, in the same period, there was an increase of about 5%, in Germany by almost 15%.

Fault of the fiscal drag

«The relationship does not say it – he wrote on Corriere Enrico Marro – But this also happened because of the Fiscal Drag, a phenomenon of which there was a lot of talk in the seventies and eighties and which is now strangely overlooked. As demonstrated by several studies (Bruno Anastasia, Marco Leonardi and others), despite the repeated cuts of the Cuneo from 2020 onwards, the major taxes paid due to the increase in the nominal income driven by inflation (Prices rose by about 20% between 2019 and today) were not compensated, causing an impoverishment of the net real wage. To which a dynamic of the contractual wages also contributed which, as stated in the Oil report, despite having increased by 15% on average in nominal terms, have lost more than 5 points compared to inflation « .

New economic actors

Riccardi confirms and enlarges the picture a little: «Globalization has brought out new aggregated economic actors, while we were struggling with two needs: Put in order the public accounts and moderate the inflation that risked eroding everything. Salarial moderation played a fundamental role in this at the end of the end of the centurybut the income policy defends the poorest only if it really applies to all income and reflects on prices moderating their growth. Instead, he ended up offering the ideal soil on which to graft three negative transformations: the financialization of the economy, a competitive production model for low costs and not for quality, the remuneration of the capital much more than work « .

Wage moderation

Speaking of wage moderation, Riccardi goes a little countercurrent (Here a video analysis by Antonio Polito) And he writes: « Leave the time that he finds the unions accusing the unions of not having protected the wages enough, » distracted « by more political operations, because it was what they asked themselves as » responsibility « in recent decades and trouble if strikes were proclaimed. Just as it has very little sense now to limit itself to discussing minimum wages by law yes or not, as if it were the decisive and generalizing toolwhen instead it should be used only experimental and limited to not penalize the bargaining, capable of protecting the generality of workers more effectively « .

Increases the share of inheritance

Elena also remembered that, in 2023, the amount of income received by the oldest families is 5.5 times the one perceived by the poorest families – uphill from 5.3 of 2022 – and that the share of national wealth due to the inheritance has increased, a symptom of social inequality (and one of the pillars of the « Signorial Society of Massa » described by the sociologist Luca Ricolfi; Here an analysis by Ferruccio de Bortoli).

Redefine contracts

Is there any way to get out of it? Riccardi’s suggestion is « sitting at a table to see how to extend the contracts, redefine subjects and weights in the new scenarios, How to tie the participation of workers more and more in the results of companies. It is still necessary to act on the tax lever To lighten its weight on waged work and increase that on income, above all to make everyone really pay. For those who have minimal incomes to hear about the scrapping of the tax folders, of yet another gift to the tax evaders sounds like a scandal ».

The not collected credits

Ditto for news like this, also of the last few hours: at the end of January taxes, contributions and fines entrusted to the revenue-rescussion and unpaid agency have reached 1,272.9 billion euros, but most of these credits is now virtual. According to the Commission commissioned by the Government to analyze the tax credits warehouse537 billion are technically inevitable, that is, they will not be recovered. They concern credits of deceased or nulotone people, companies that are no longer active or failed.

The tax warehouse

The potentially collected credits, on the total, are 567 billion, while for another 167 billion the recovery possibilities are defined as uncertain. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, which cited the data of the Revenue Agency itself, of the 1,272.9 billion in collection, in reality just 100.8 billion, 5.4% of the total load entrusted, has a fairly high degree of various. The account would have been even higher if, as calculated by the Finance Department, 326 billion had not been deleted in self -protection and another 95.8 were not nuanced in scrapping and excerpts.

The scrapping hide amnesty

In this regard, Gianni Trovati and Marco Mobili, on Sole 24 hoursthey underline that « for the Budget Parliamentary Office, the scrapping nourish the desire for amnesty. Or, to put it in the most official language used by the councilor Valeria De Bonis, « repeated and stratified measures of facilitated definition and cancellation of debts contribute to feeding in taxpayers expectations of future concessions and amnesties, with negative repercussions on collection « . The UPB is not a no regardless: but, warns De Bonis, « these measures should be joined by an improvement in efficiency both of the mechanisms of compulsory collection and stimulus to spontaneous adaptation ».

Tax breakdown

The « phenomena of non -fulfillment », agreed on the Court of Auditors with Enrico Flaccadoro, president of coordination of the sections gathered during the control, are «Potentially fueled by repeated scrapping, cancellations, excerpts and dilations, which strengthen the expectations of future demolition or cancellations or installments of debt positions « ».
From the « scandal » to social anger, the step can be dangerously short.