Meritocracy Italy: single family allowance, some corrective measures are essential

“Next week, the Council of Ministers will examine the details and timing of the implementing decree relating to the ‘Single family allowance’. The instrument is proposed as a single, all-encompassing measure, replacing all the currently provided and fragmentedly regulated subsidies, with the complete elimination of deductions for dependent children, family checks, hypothetical bonuses and purchase cards “. This is what is observed in a well-known Italian Meritocracy. “Long overdue – notes the note -, the new regulation should have come into force last July. Postponed the change, during the summer we temporarily opted for the so-called ‘bridge check’ for the unemployed and self-employed, which provided for a maximum Isee ceiling of € 50,000 and was compatible with citizenship income and with the use of any other subsidies in favor of dependent children paid by Regions and Municipalities “. “It remains decidedly appreciable that – observes the note -, with a view to equity and facilitation for users, categories of workers so far totally extraneous to the benefits have been included, that fragmented subsidies have been eliminated, unified with a view to simplification, and that an allowance has been made for adult children conditional on specialized requirements or which incentivize training courses. However, some significant critical issues remain, including: the link between benefit and Isee indicator, which takes into account not only income but also equity parameters , moreover without the obligation of presentation; the possibility, as happened with the citizenship income, of a duplication of households with fictitious separations or residences of convenience; a too wide range between the minimum monthly amount (€ 40/50 euros) and maximum ( € 180), penalizing the middle classes who risk being paid less than the old check miliary; the too high contribution for those with low ISEE, destined to rise up to € 240/250 from the third child onwards for the maximum levels, which added to other subsidies could actually discourage job seekers “.” A corrective, Meritocrazia Italia proposes to: link the allowance to family income only, to avoid unfairness and prevent the calculation from being vitiated by patrimonial reasons, potentially misleading with respect to the real family economic condition; link the subsidy for unemployed families to active employment inclusion policies, if necessary with progressive reduction of the amount of the allowance based on the length of the years of unemployment; bind an appropriate percentage of this support to imposed purposes (eg cultural education of minors, sports activities, etc.). Meritocracy – concludes the note – insists that the problem must be tackled in a more structured way, according to a policy of vision and perspective. Isolated subsidy initiatives are insufficient and inadequate to guarantee balance of stability and real well-being. In this regard, it should be noted that the low birth rate mainly depends on the high level of youth unemployment, which prevents the formation of new large families, and on the reduced protection of maternity. It is, therefore, with these problems that we must measure ourselves “.