THE LAZIO SCANDAL OF POLITICIANS RETIRMENT PLANS

The current retirement system at Lazio Region hugely favors politicians and, as a result, normalcitizens are forced to retire later and receive less social security than politicians. For example,normal citizens are required to be 66 years of age before retiring, while politicians at LazioRegion are allowed to retire at only 50 years of age. In addition, politicians are allowed to retireafter just one day of work, but the average Italian citizen needs to work for 40 years before beingallowed to retire. Furthermore, Lazio Region politicians receive much more money afterretirement. The average social security check for a regular Italian citizen is under 1,000 netEuros per month.

In contrast, politicians at Lazio Region average 4,000 net Euros per month andcan even reach up to 6,000 net Euros. Additionally, the average Italian citizen is only entitled toreceiving the amount of social security that he or she has gathered in his or her account, whilepoliticians may get up to 18 times more money than what they have actually put in. Also,politicians are able to get many social security checks from different public forms of retirementplans, such as Lazio Region retirement plans, Congress, and regular social security money.

However, normal citizens do not have the ability to add social security to other public forms ofretirement plans. The inequality between politicians and regular citizens is outrageous. 1/3 of thetotal costs accumulated by the regional congress is used to pay social security checks to formercongressman, resulting in 20 million of the 60 million Euros being spent on paying formerpoliticians. The Cinque Stelle Movement is proposing a bill to make the retirement system morejust for all citizens in the Lazio Region. Under this proposed bill, politicians would no longerreceive regional annuity or be able to accumulate social security checks from many differentpublic forms of retirement plans. Each politician would only receive the amount of money thathe or she contributed to the social security system.

In addition, politicians would no longer beable to retire at 50 years of age. Instead, they would be required to be 65 years old beforeretiring. If passed, this bill would make the system for retirement much more equal for allcitizens within the Lazio Region and would result in saving more than 10 million Euros per year.

Thanks to Miranda Sleigh for this article