Rome [Italy], August 2: Hundreds of thousands of Italians would have their social benefits cut off on Tuesday, as the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni decided on stricter conditions for receiving social assistance.
The recipients were informed by text message last Friday.
According to media reports, about 169,000 households are affected by the drastic cut in social assistance. Observers believe the payments, known as the citizen's income, could be suspended for an additional 80,000 households in late summer.
The south, traditionally the poorer part of Italy, is particularly affected by the new measures. Naples, for example, has the highest number of people receiving the benefit.
From now on, only households in which minors, people with disabilities or where senior citizens over 65 live will receive the citizen's income.
Trade unions and activist groups called for protests against the cuts. In some cities in the south, sit-ins were held in front of the offices of the social welfare agency INPS.
In Sicily, in the municipality of Terrasini, an unemployed man vented his anger on Monday and stormed into the mayor's office, spilling petrol and threatening to set fire to everything. He was stopped.
Opposition politicians sharply criticized the government's move.
Former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, who introduced the citizen's income in 2019, called the move an "ideological war being fought on the backs of the most vulnerable." Social Democrat Elly Schlein called the cuts "brutal." Critics fear a "social catastrophe." Outrage was caused by the fact that the cut was communicated by text message.
The welfare payment was a thorn in the side of Meloni's right-wing government, which wants to massively reduce the number of benefit recipients and expenditure on the programme. The right-wing parties repeatedly claimed that the citizen's income did not provide an incentive for those who could work to actually work.
Source: Qatar Tribune
