Istat, one in four Italians at risk of poverty or social exclusion

In 2022 just under a quarter of the Italian population (24.4%) was at risk of poverty or social exclusion, almost as in 2021 (25.2%). Thanks to the recovery of the economy after the pandemic and the increase in employment and income, however, the population in conditions of severe material and social deprivation is significantly reduced (4.5% compared to 5.9% in 2021) and the population at risk of poverty (20.1%). Istat notes it in the report on income and living conditions 2021-2022.

The same document shows that – with reference this time to 2021 – the average household income (33,798 euros) has returned to growth both in nominal terms (+3%) and in real terms (+1%). In the year of analysis, the total income of the wealthiest families was 5.6 times that of the poorest families (ratio substantially stable compared to 2020). This value, underlines the Institute of Statistics, would have been higher (6.4 times) in the absence of interventions to support families.

Remaining on the income trend, if we measure the overall contraction compared to 2007, the year preceding the first economic crisis of the new millennium, it emerges that there is still a significant gap, with a loss in real terms equal to an average of 5.3% : the contraction is -10% in the Centre, -9.4% in the South, -1.7% in the North-East and -0.9% in the North-West.

In particular, the decline in incomes was particularly intense for families whose main source of income is self-employment (-10.5%) and dependent work (-7.5%), while families whose income is consisting mainly of pensions and public transfers experienced an increase of 8.4% in the period.

Speaking of poverty, Istat also takes stock of the effectiveness of the Citizenship Income that the Meloni government has dismantled. In 2021, the RdC consolidated its role as a structural measure to combat poverty: if in 2019 the beneficiary families of the RdC had been 970 thousand, equal to 3.8% of the total Italian families, and in 2020 this share had risen to 5.3%, in 2021 it is estimated that there were around 1.5 million households receiving CIs, 5.9% of the total, with an average annual benefit of €5,522. This share rises to 14.4% for families in the poorest fifth and to 8.7% for those in the second fifth. Istat notes this in the report on living conditions and household income.

The impact of the move averaged around 30% of overall household income (and up to 42.4% for the poorest fifth of households). 11.2% of households residing in the South received at least one month’s wages, a much higher share than that recorded in the North-East (1.5%), in the North-West (3.9%) and in the Center (4.3%). Families with 5 or more members used the CI to a greater extent than less numerous families: around 10% of the former, compared to a share between 5% and 7% for smaller families. Approximately 11% of families with at least one foreign component received the CI, more than double the share relating to families made up of Italian citizens only.