The government's new 'inclusion
cheque' anti-poverty benefit will actually increase poverty in
Italy, the European Commission said Wednesday.
The benefit will raise absolute poverty by 0.8 percentage points
and child poverty by 0.5 percentage points, with respect to the
previous regime, said the EU executive.
New and more rigorous criteria for getting the benefit will
reduce the impact in easing poverty, said Brussels.
The EC said in the analysis on social convergence dedicated to
Italy conducted by the EU Commission in the framework of the
European Semester: "It is expected that the inclusion allowance
will lead to a higher incidence of absolute and child poverty
(0.8 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points, respectively)
compared to the previous scheme".
It said: "Despite some positive accompanying measures, stricter
eligibility criteria for the support introduced in January are
expected to reduce the poverty-relieving impact of the new
scheme".
The new benefit is intended to make up for the loss of the
costly and fraud-dogged 'citizenship wage' basic income, which
has been abolished.
Government critics say the basic income was actually working
better than its critics said.
The income was a flagship policy of the anti-establishment
5-Star Movement, which claimed to have "abolished poverty" with
it.
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