Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is the "Social Card"?
Reply: "Simplify Italy" makes provision for trialling a new Social Card for poorer families. It will join the former purchase card introduced in 2008 (the Ordinary Social Card) which will continue to be distributed in the meantime: €40 per month for about 1,300,000 people. The municipal authorities with more than 250,000 inhabitants will manage the new Social Card which will be valid for one year, with resources of €50 million from the general fund of the Ordinary Social Card.
Within three months, the Ministries of Work and Social Policies, and the Economy and Finance are required to lay down the criteria for identifying those eligible to use the new purchase card, and the amount of money available.
There are three main novelties with respect to the 2008 Social Card:
- The intermediaries for distributing the purchase card will be municipalities with a population of more than 250,000. This involves 12 of Italy's largest cities: Milan, Turin, Venice, Verona, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples, Bari, Catania and Palermo.
Third sector organisations will be involved in managing job-finding and social inclusion projects developed in conjunction with the local authorities. The involvement of the municipal authorities is intended to link the issue of the card to a tailored project for the beneficiaries – "empowerment" in technical parlance – designed to help them overcome their current difficulties, and not merely as a maintenance measure.
- Whereas the former purchase card was only for Italians, the new Social Card will also be available to EU citizens (provided that they are in the Schengen area). The amount accredited to them on each individual card will not be the same for all beneficiaries, as was the case with the former purchase card. The difference will depend on the size of the family and the cost of living in the municipalities concerned.
- To make it possible to evaluate the trial, to see whether it can be applied generally as a policy to combat absolute poverty, the municipalities involved are required to undertake with very specific reporting tasks.
Page updated on 11 April, 2012
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