A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #30-25 - When Work Creates Poverty. ISTAT Report (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Over 5.7 million people live in absolute poverty. The gap between North 
and South is growing, but poverty is becoming more "social" and 
widespread. Workers, the unemployed, pensioners, and foreign families 
are the new poor of the Republic of Labor. ---- Working alone isn't 
enough to escape poverty. Having a pension, a roof over one's head, or 
even two incomes isn't enough. The new ISTAT report on poverty in Italy 
paints a picture of a country where statistical stability masks 
structural impoverishment. In 2024, over 2.2 million families (8.4% of 
the total) and 5.7 million individuals (9.8% of residents) live in 
absolute poverty. These numbers remain formally unchanged from 2023, but 
they reveal a more profound reality: poverty is no longer a "marginal" 
condition; it is a commonplace condition.

Poverty is no longer the face of unemployment, but also of work. Among 
families where a primary caregiver is employed as a blue-collar worker 
or similar, the incidence of poverty reaches 15.6%; among the 
unemployed, it exceeds 21%. Even among those who are self-employed, the 
percentage remains significant (7.4%). In other words, workreal, 
precarious, underpaid workis no longer a tool for emancipation, but a 
means of survival. This is a signal that calls into question the entire 
social model, founded on the myth of "full employment" as synonymous 
with well-being: today, people work more, earn less, and live worse.

Poverty is intertwined with regional and citizenship inequalities. In 
Southern Italy, it affects 10.5% of families, compared to 7.9% in the 
North and 6.5% in Central Italy. But the real divide lies between 
Italians and foreigners: among families with at least one foreigner, 
absolute poverty rises to 30.4%, and reaches 35.2% when all members are 
foreigners. In ten years, poverty among immigrants has increased by ten 
percentage points. Among foreign families with minor children, the peaks 
are dramatic: over 46% in Southern Italy. It is a double 
exclusioneconomic and socialthat institutional racism transforms into a 
condemnation.
Not even old age guarantees greater security: among families with a 
retired caregiver, poverty affects 5.8%, but it is rising in the 
Southern regions and in large cities. After a lifetime of contributions, 
many seniors find themselves choosing between heating and eating, 
between rent and medicine.

Renting families are the most vulnerable: more than one in five (22.1%) 
lives in absolute poverty. The average rent for a poor family is EUR373, 
nearly half of a minimum monthly income. Housing policies, dismantled 
over the last twenty years, have transformed housing from a right to a 
privilege.

On the educational front, poverty decreases with increasing educational 
qualifications, but even a diploma is no longer a guarantee: among those 
who have completed high school, 4.2% are still poor. And among minors, 
the situation is even more alarming: 1.28 million children and 
adolescents, equal to 13.8% of Italian minors, live in absolute poverty, 
the highest figure since 2014.

Behind these figures, we glimpse an increasingly unequal society. Wealth 
is concentrated in a few hands, while millions are excluded from the 
welfare system. Poverty is not an individual accident, but a systemic 
product: it arises from cuts to public services, stagnant wages, 
starvation pensions, the precariousness and privatization of the economy 
and life.

ISTAT measures poverty in percentages; we see it in the faces of those 
who work to survive, in the neighborhoods where shops and schools are 
closing, in the families waiting years for public housing. In a country 
where inequality is growing, the real emergency is not inflation, but 
social justice. As long as work is exploited, poverty will not be an 
accident but a rule. And as long as the economy continues to serve 
profit rather than needs, every statistic will remain merely a snapshot 
of the disaster.

Totò Caggese2

https://umanitanova.org/quando-il-lavoro-crea-poverta-rapporto-istat/
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