Laws and Benefits

Disability and work

In Italy, the first law which dealt with disability and work was Law 482/68. This law introduced the obligation for private and public organizations to provide jobs for disabled people under certain conditions.

Today, Law 68/99 is the main legislation governing the employment of disabled people. A training scheme is available to both disabled workers and job seekers. This scheme is known as targeted1 employment because it aims at allowing disabled people to compete on the job market. An individual plan is designed and if it includes special training, this will be organised by the company that employs the disabled person or by an external organisation. Based on the size of their workforce, both private and public sector employers are required to hire a certain percentage of disabled workers. In addition to this general legislation, various legal acts govern target disability employment in specific fields.

WARM UP

In your opinion, disabled people …
a. need a job to survive.
b. can choose between a job or a disability pension if they are declared able to work.
c. can have both a job and a disability pension.

DO

1 A target is …
a. an objective.
b. a round board with circles that people practice shooting at.
c. both a and b.

Disability pensions

People with a permanent disability, not related to a work accident (→ Module 6), receive a disability pension based on notional contributions, i.e. the disabled individual does not have to pay any monetary contributions. It is adjusted annually according to the average rate of increase in gross domestic product (GDP)1 during the last five years, and a coefficient that varies according to the age of the insured. An increment based on the number of years between the age of the insured on the date when the disability began and the normal retirement age is added to the pension.
Law 18/80 defined a table with different percentages of disability related to different pathologies in order to determine the amount of the pension.
With Decree 509/88, the categories of impairing diseases were better defined.

Tax reduction

When disabled people present their annual income declaration, other benefits include tax reduction for medical expenditure, not only related to medicines, but also for wheelchairs and other aids.

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1 GDP is an economie indicator which measures the production of goods and services in a country.