Macroeconomic data are proving to be the most important achievements of the Meloni government. Although there is still much to be done and our accounts are far from being restored, GDP and employment represent the most significant values achieved by the executive now in office for almost two years. No one would have said this only a few months ago, but in terms of employment , Italy is moving up the European rankings: unemployment has drastically dropped below the 7% threshold, with 6.5% beating other EU competitors, such as Sweden and Finland, often used as models of civilisation to our detriment. There are now more than 24 million jobs in Italy, never so many in the history of our nation, and in one year they have increased by a number not far below one million. Driving the growth is the increase in jobs for women and the decline in precarious employment, with fixed-term contracts decreasing and permanent contracts increasing. This is due not only to capable and willing workers, entire industries and sectors that do their work on a daily basis, but also to the various measures desired by the Meloni government, such as the Cohesion Decree and the various decontributions in favour of fragile categories, such as women, employees in the South, and young people (whose unemployment dropped by 0.6% in July).
Excellent GDP in 2024
Even the GDP gives Italy good reasons to talk about growth and to hope for growth in the months to come. In fact, the latest Defence Report, drawn up in April, predicted that Italy’s GDP would grow by 1% this year: in the first six months alone, GDP grew by 0.9%, matching last year’s already excellent result, and thus ‘risking’ reaching the 1% mark prematurely, even before the end of the year. From this figure and the excellent trend in tax revenues and the return from evasion (a record last year), it is expected that the budget law will not be as restrictive as the opposition owls hoped and predicted. Weighing on the next budget is especially the success of the two pivotal measures of the centre-right budgets: cutting the tax and contribution wedge, by 7% for incomes up to 25,000 euro, and 6% for incomes up to 35,000 euro, and the reduction from four (initially five) to three Irpef tax brackets, with the consequent adjustment of the lowest rate among the merged brackets.
Growing forecasts
For 2025, on the other hand, the Def, which, like those drawn up by the Ministry of the Economy since the political direction has been right-wing, is very cautious (and received, despite this, several criticisms, which were then evidently denied by the facts); we said, for 2025, the Def has instead forecast growth of 1.2%. But precisely the impact of the wedge cut and the Irpef reform could be highly positive on the accounts, the economy, the market, production and poverty (already slowing down). With a view to the next Budget, the two reforms could have an impact of 0.2 per cent, which would be equivalent to EUR 4 billion available for the government to use in the budget. Everything will depend on the content of the Budget Structure Plan, the new document requested by Europe and that replaces the Nadef, the Def Update Note that in the autumn occupied the thoughts of the directors of Via XX Settembre. It is possible, in short, that 2025 will be better than we expected and that positive results may come even beyond the government’s measures, because this is also the purpose of its measures: to be a driving force, to free the market from the old constraints, to lead the way and allow all the players in the field to continue on their way. Fratelli d’Italia’s slogan for the victorious 2022 elections said just that: we need to ‘free the energy‘: the Meloni government is doing just that.
