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All the “tricks” to have the citizenship income

The Basic income it generated a very polarized public discourse. It is unlikely that this is not the case, especially after news such as that of these days: the carabinieri have unmasked a large group of citizens who unduly received this measure of income support. A damage to the state, that is to all of us, almost 20 million euros (but the total in 2021 at the country level would be double), caused by people who owned Ferraris, boats, even car rentals.

Thus two choirs become more and more deafening: on the one hand there are those who point to the measure strongly desired (and defended) by the 5 stars as totally ineffective; on the other, the goodness of an instrument that has protected some groups of citizens, hit with greater force by the economic and employment consequences of the pandemic, is highlighted.

The truth is presumably halfway there, as often happens in the analysis of very complex phenomena. Instead, what everyone agrees on for good or bad is the weakness of the mechanisms that should have favored the inclusion of citizens’ income earners in the world of work.

This measure, in some cases – let us remember – minority, has also triggered little virtuous mechanisms in some workers who, from north to south, have interpreted the citizenship income not as a support but as a substitute for work.

The negative effect on the work culture

It thus happens that in some regions it has become very opposed, especially by those who have a job and are committed to keeping it. One of these is Sicily where, according to the latest available INPS monitoring data, 18% of the total number of households live, which in the first nine months of 2021 received at least one month’s salary from the RdC: 270,874 out of an Italian total of 1,525,760 nuclei.

Here, speaking with various workers, we perceived the negative effect that citizenship income has had above all on the culture of work. Salvatore (the name is fictional) is a driver in good standing for about ten months a year and tells us an interesting aspect in this regard. Confronting various acquaintances who benefit from the RdC, he happened to be made fun of; yes, because he, working eight hours a day, receives a salary that may be lower than that of those who, enjoying the measure, illegally round up with some illegal work. This is a fraud of the law that some implement, despite the fact that the RdC is “compatible with the carrying out of work by one or more members of the family unit, without prejudice to the maintenance of the required requisites. The amount of the RdC will be recalculated on the basis of the new income received ”as the dedicated website of the Ministry of Labor explains. He tells us about it with some despair, thus highlighting the possibility that the RdC triggers a disincentive effect on the search for a job by some of the workers.

The case of seasonal jobs

Speaking with those who work in the world of hospitality it is not difficult, as has emerged in several regions, to encounter the difficulty of finding resources for seasonal jobs related to tourism. In the case of Sicily, however, this rather widespread perception is not reflected in employment data according to Fabio Mazzola, full professor of economic policy at the University of Palermo. “The fact that some workers are not found because of the citizenship income is more the fruit of the anecdotal. The trend of the Sicilian labor market, according to employment data, is substantially flat and does not appear to be influenced by citizenship income. In the case of seasonal jobs, moreover, it is also necessary to see what the conditions offered are, by accurately understanding how the income is compared to an entrance salary in jobs of this type »he comments.

And where indeed the job offers in the hospitality sector are dignified and foresee paths of growth and enhancement of resources, this negative effect of the RdC was not so decisive. This is the case, for example, of Club Med, which in Sicily is present with two tourist villages all inclusive in the Ragusa area and in Cefalù. “We also noticed a slight decline in applications from Sicily, but this can also be explained by the specific post-pandemic situation: there are people, for example, who still don’t feel like moving to work in our resorts at the abroad and therefore prefer to decline the offer. However, excluding these cases, we had no great difficulty in finding resources in the area, “he explains Helga Niola, Southern Europe Employer Branding & Talent Acquisition Manager di Club Med.

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