Abstract

With the 2023 budget law government and parliament have deliberated the dismissal at the end of the year of the Reddito di cittadinanza, the minimum income provision introduced in Italy in the second half of 2019, with the plan to substitute it with something else. In the meantime, changes have been introduced for the current year, that worsen the situation for a large part of the beneficiaries (those who do not have an underage child, a disabled person, or a person over 65), whose benefit tenure will be radically reduced. The article details these changes, substantially based on an idea of «employability» that is largely distant from the actual circumstances of both the beneficiaries and the labor market. It also documents that government is not fulfilling its part in the stricter obligations imposed to the beneficiaries, with regard to the organization of «intensive training courses» for those whose skills are too low or need to be upgraded, and «schooling courses» for the 18-29 young who have left school without having achieved the legal minimum degree. The «active labor market policy» side of the Minimum income provision continues to be its Achille’s heel, and its failure translated in blaming the poor for their laziness. The author concludes that the government’s intention to introduce two distinct measures, one for the «employable poor» and another for the «fragile and vulnerable poor» contrasts the logic of the proposed EU Recommendation on this issue, which operates this distinction only with regard to the services and opportunities that should integrate income support.