Italian Government Cuts Social Assistance, Provoking Protests: Impact on 170,000 Families

2023-07-31 22:57:56

The Italian government cuts social assistance, causing protests. Around 170,000 families will no longer receive citizen benefits from August. The reason is the stricter requirements for obtaining the so-called minimum income, which are set by the government around the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were decided.

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In the future, only households with disabled or underage members or seniors over 65 will receive basic income. Between August and September, the benefit for 80,000 more families is likely to be suspended, according to government sources.

Almost 2 million households live in poverty

According to a report by the consulting institute Censis, in 2021, the period with the latest available data, more than 1.9 million households in Italy lived in poverty, or 7.5 percent of all households. A total of 5.6 million people or 9.4 percent of the population were affected – and thus 1 million more than in 2019. A good 44 percent live in southern Italy or on the islands. The high inflation, which caused food prices to rise sharply in Italy in particular, further worsened the situation last year.

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Lastly, this consisted of the Prime Minister’s Government Joseph Conte Citizens’ benefit (“Reddito di Cittadinanza”) introduced in 2019 for a single person from a subsidy of up to 780 euros per month, a family of four received 1,330 euros. Business people also believe that the citizen’s income means that the unemployed do not look for a job. There is an acute shortage of staff in many economic sectors, especially in gastronomy and tourism.

Goal: 40 percent minus

The Meloni government wants to reduce the number of beneficiaries by around 40 percent within a few years. The expenditure of the past year for the citizens’ income of more than eight billion euros is to be reduced by three billion euros. Welfare recipients lose benefits if they turn down a job offer that is at least 60 percent of a full-time job and pays the collectively agreed minimum wage.

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The cuts in social assistance caused protests in southern Italy. Hundreds of people who had been informed by text message regarding the cessation of the minimum income payment stormed the headquarters of the INPS welfare institution in Naples and tried to find out regarding the new, stricter requirements for receiving citizen benefits. Naples is the city with the most recipients of citizen income. Opposition politicians warned of the danger that a “social bomb” might explode in southern Italy. Concerned mayors in the southern Italian region of Calabria called on the government not to cut citizen income.

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