From 2012 to 2025 a pension of 2,500 euros gross rose to 2,826 euros, but the revaluation did not completely compensate for the increase in prices. The reconstruction of the Dataroom and the Social Security Itineraries Study Center: approximately 3.3 million pensioners involved
How impoverished has the middle class pensioner become in the last 13 years? Who in 2012 collected a check of 2,500 euros gross per month, in 2025 it reached 2,826 (around 1,917 net), but has lost along the way, in those thirteen years, over 37 thousand euros gross. A loss that affects approximately 3.3 million pensioners. To do the calculation and look for the reasons is a reconstruction of Dataroom (Corriere della Sera) with the Social Security Itineraries Study Center, which defines those who receive a pension between 2,400 and 5,300 euros gross per month as belonging to the middle class.
How revaluation works and what “losing” thousands of euros means
Until 1992 pensions and salaries grew together thanks to the escalator, abolished by the Amato reform. Since 1994, the allowances have been adjusted to inflation: it is the so-called automatic equalization, designed because those who no longer work have no contracts to renew. However, recovery is not the same for everyone. It is measured with respect to minimum INPS treatmenti.e. the lowest guaranteed amount: if a pension is lower, the State integrates the difference. The higher the check in multiples of the minimum, the less inflation is recovered.
And the “loss”? It is the difference between what the pensioner collected and what he would have collected if the check had always risen as much as prices. Each year of reduced recovery lowers the starting point of the following one, and the gap adds up and repeats itself. Two systems are used: in stepswhere the percentage drops only on the part of the pension that exceeds each threshold, and to classeswhere exceeding the threshold, even by one euro, reduces the recovery on the entire check. The second is much more penalizing.
Monti block and subsequent years: how the loss was formed
In 2012 the Monti government stopped the adjustment above three times the minimum for two years. The Constitutional Court declares it illegitimate, but the recovery is minimal: 10% of what is due. The class system has been applied since 2014: with a check of more than five times the minimum you recover half of the inflation. In 2020 and 2021, with the Conte II government, the full recovery threshold rises to around 2,050 euros gross, without changing the mechanism. The brackets return in 2022, when the loss has already reached 22,979 euros.
The squeeze of 2023 and the comparison with other countries
In 2023 and 2024, with prices rising sharply, the Meloni government returns to the class system: the average pensioner recovers 53% of inflation and the State saves around 10 billion in two years. The brackets will return from 2025but another 14,519 euros were lost: the total is 37,498. Another indicator is the value of the check in multiples of the minimum: 5.34 in 2011, 5.07 in 2022 (with 2,614 euros), 4.72 in 2025.
According to the OECD, five countries recover inflation in full only under certain thresholds: Austria, Colombia, Italy, Latvia and Portugal. However, Colombia, Latvia and Portugal have stable rules, while in Italy and Austria they often change, so much so that the OECD speaks of an “almost discretionary” revaluation. In Italy the criteria have been changed 15 times in thirty years.
Maneuver 2027 and the future: what to expect
For the middle class, the next budget law seems to focus more on taxes than on an increase in the gross allowance or on better revaluation rates. Among the hypotheses being circulated is a reduction in Irpef on medium-high incomes, with savings that the most optimistic estimates put at around one thousand euros a year.
On pensions, however, a full recovery of inflation for the middle classes appears distant: over 10 billion would be needed and the resources would go first to minimum pensions. For now, these are hypotheses, to be confirmed with the definitive text.
Then there is an issue regarding who will retire afterwards. From 2036 all allowances will be calculated only on the contributions paid: they will therefore start lower for those who have had modest salaries or discontinuous careers. If to this we added a revaluation that changes with each government, the risk would no longer be an impoverished middle class, but a true economic fragility of the elderly.
