A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #46 - INPS is more than just pensions - History of mutualistic assets - Totò Caggese (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Why talk about INPS today? ---- The presentation of the INPS 2025 Annual 
Report brings the future of the Italian social protection system back to 
the forefront of the debate. In presenting it, the Institute's 
president, Gabriele Fava, proposed the creation of a "Welfare Workshop": 
a permanent space for developing and discussing social policies for the 
coming years.
It's a proposal that deserves attention. The aging population, the 
declining birth rate, the transformations of the labor market, and 
profound economic and social changes raise questions that no protection 
system can avoid.

But any reflection on the future should begin with an understanding of 
the present. Before discussing how the Italian welfare system should 
evolve, it's perhaps necessary to ask an even simpler question.

What is INPS really?

The most common answer seems almost obvious: it's the institution that 
pays pensions. An understandable answer, but a reductive one.

INPS is Italy's main social security institution, but limiting its role 
to pension payments ignores a key aspect of its function and history. 
Behind that definition lies a much broader system, built over more than 
a century, which supports the lives of workers before retirement: during 
illness, maternity leave, unemployment, corporate crises, and many other 
situations in which individual income declines or declines.

To understand the debate over the future of INPS, it's therefore 
necessary to take a step back. Before considering the Institute's 
reforms, we need to understand the nature of the social wealth it 
manages and the historical roots from which it originated.

Every month, millions of Italian workers pay contributions to INPS.

Most of them think that these contributions are primarily used to 
finance their future pension. In reality, only a portion of their 
contributions is earmarked for this purpose. The rest feeds a complex 
set of funds that intervene at very different stages of their working lives.

When a worker becomes ill and continues to receive income. When a worker 
takes maternity or paternity leave.

When a company experiences a crisis and resorts to layoffs. When a 
person loses their job and receives unemployment benefits. When an 
employer goes bankrupt and the Severance Pay Guarantee Fund steps in.

These are different benefits, governed by different regulations and 
funded through specific contributions. At first glance, they may appear 
to be independent tools, almost lacking a common thread. Yet they all 
respond to the same rationale: to protect people from events that could 
interrupt or reduce their earned income.

Pensions are certainly the most economically significant component of 
the system administered by INPS, but they do not exhaust its function. 
Alongside old age protection, there are insurance plans for illness, 
maternity, unemployment, suspension of work, and other social risks that 
have developed over the course of the country's industrial development.

When viewed as a whole, INPS appears less like a simple pension 
institution and more like the administrator of a complex social 
insurance system that supports workers throughout their entire lives.

Where does this system come from?

The mutualism of work

The social insurance system administered today by INPS did not originate 
with INPS.

Its roots lie in the experience of the labor movement and mutual aid 
societies, which arose to collectively address the risks that accompany 
the lives of working men and women.

Illness. Injury. Old age. Maternity. Job loss. Production crises.

Different events, but all sharing one thing: no one can predict if or 
when they will be struck. But everyone can contribute to ensuring those 
who face them aren't left alone.

This is the logic of mutualism: transforming an individual risk into a 
collective responsibility.

With the development of industrial society, however, voluntary forms of 
mutual aid alone were no longer sufficient. The expansion of wage labor, 
the growth of large industrial concentrations, and the emergence of new 
social risks necessitated the development of more stable instruments 
capable of ensuring comprehensive protection for the entire working 
community.

The state gradually intervened to recognize these forms of protection, 
make them mandatory, subject them to common rules, and assume their 
administration. The INPS became the primary body responsible for 
managing this system.

But managing does not mean creating.

Mutual capital does not originate from INPS or the state. It arises from 
the ability of the working world to organize collective forms of 
solidarity, which have been progressively recognized and institutionalized.

A wealth built by work

Every month, millions of workers allocate a portion of their wealth to 
mutual funds designed to finance collective benefits: pensions, sickness 
benefits, maternity and paternity leave, redundancy payments, 
unemployment benefits, the Severance Pay Guarantee Fund, and many other 
benefits.

Each contribution has a specific purpose. Taken together, however, these 
payments are based on a single principle: sharing the cost of risks that 
no individual could face alone.

In legal jargon, this is called mandatory contributions. From a social 
perspective, these contributions also represent a portion of the wealth 
produced by labor intended to build common rights and protections.

This is the mutualistic patrimony administered by INPS.

But what is its real size today?

How much is mutualistic assets worth today?

The mutualistic wealth built by dependent work can be measured.

The INPS 2025 Annual Report shows its size through the number of insured 
people, pensioners, benefits paid, companies involved, and financial 
resources managed.

The following data not only describes the activities of INPS. They 
measure the size of one of the largest collective assets built by labor 
in the history of the country.

There are 27 million workers insured with INPS, and 1.8 million 
businesses pay contributions annually. There are 15.7 million 
pensioners, while pension payments exceed 21 million, indicating that 
many people receive more than one benefit. Added to these are 30.1 
million medical certificates of illness, 2.8 million NASPI 
beneficiaries, and 10 million children receiving the Single and 
Universal Allowance.

These numbers are difficult to reconcile with the traditional image of 
INPS as a simple pension institution. They describe a system that 
accompanies millions of people throughout their lives: when they enter 
the workforce, when they fall ill, when a child is born, when they lose 
their job, and when they reach retirement.

The economic dimensions also confirm this reality. In 2024, INPS managed 
EUR471 billion in current revenue, EUR284 billion of which came from 
contributions, and disbursed EUR460 billion, EUR417 billion of which was 
allocated to institutional benefits.

These figures reveal something beyond the budget of a public 
institution. They reveal the economic dimension of organized solidarity. 
Every year, a portion of the wealth produced by labor is collected and 
redistributed to ensure social security for millions of people.

These are the figures that today give substance to the mutualistic 
assets administered by INPS.

Conclusions

The INPS 2025 Annual Report invites reflection on the future of Italian 
welfare. This is a necessary reflection: an aging population, declining 
birth rates, and a changing labor market are challenges no social 
protection system can escape.

But any reform should begin with an understanding of what INPS 
administers. Behind pensions, benefits, and social safety nets lies more 
than just the work of a public institution. It's a collective heritage 
built over more than a century through the work and contributions of 
millions of people.

Discussing the future of INPS means, first and foremost, discussing the 
future of this mutualistic heritage: how to preserve it, strengthen it, 
and adapt it to societal changes, without losing sight of its founding 
principles.

Because mutualism isn't a thing of the past. It's the idea, still 
relevant today, that life's great risks shouldn't fall exclusively on 
the individual, but can be faced collectively through solidarity.

Perhaps it is from here, and not from an abstract discussion of the 
future, that the "Welfare Workshop" proposed by President Fava should 
begin: from a concrete awareness of what the system already manages.

Before discussing the future of INPS, we should therefore consider the 
future of the mutualistic assets it manages. This is perhaps the most 
important reflection offered by the 2025 INPS Annual Report .

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