The ratio between ePil pension expenditure, which between 2019 and up to 2022 has started to increase again, with a peak of 17% of GDP in 2020, is destined to fall back to a level of 15.7% in 2022, a value which is over 0.5 percentage points of GDP higher than the 2018 figure.
This was indicated by the Ministry of Economy in the report 'Medium-long term trends of the pension and social-health system', estimating for 2023 that pension expenditure will grow " significantly reaching 16.2% of GDP ".
"The deterioration of the macroeconomic framework and the impact of the shock on commodity prices has a non-negligible effect on pension expenditure", notes the report.
"Following the indexation mechanism" of pensions to inflation, pension expenditure in 2023-2024 "increased by more than 0.7 points of GDP compared to the previous forecast".
In practice, over 13 billion.
The effects of this "inflationary shock", it is estimated, "are only slowly reabsorbed" in twenty years, with an average increase of 0.4 GDP points.
Moreover, if Italy were to find itself in a gas shortage scenario, pension expenditure is destined to increase "quickly, due to the indexation of inflation treatments, by 0.7 points in 2023 and by 1 point. GDP in 2024, reaching 17.1% of GDP ".
If the shock were more severe and prolonged, spending would increase "even more markedly" (+1 point in 2023 and +1.1 in 2024), reaching "a maximum level of 17.2% of GDP".