(Finance) – The absolute poor they went up last year from 5 million 316 thousand to 5 million 673 thousand (+ 357 thousand units). The incidence went from 9.1% to 9.7%. If we consider the families, there are 2 million 187 thousand families in absolute poverty, compared to 2 million 22 thousand families in 2021 (+165 thousand families), concentrated above all in the South. And the worrying photograph taken from the twenty-seventh edition of the Report on poverty and social exclusion in Italy entitled “Everything to lose” presented today in Rome – in view of the World Day of the Poor established by Pope francesco, which is celebrated on Sunday 19 November.
The inequalities between Italian citizens and foreign residents are evident, which have worsened in the last twelve months. In fact, absolute poverty remains below the average for Italian-only families (6.4%), while it stands at very high levels among households with only foreign members (33.2%). Among foreigners with minor children the figure jumps to 36.1% (compared to 7.8% of Italian-only families). Foreigners, although representing only 8.7% of the resident population, constitute 30% of the absolute poor.
The data confirms how – with over 5.6 million absolute poor, equal to 9.7% of the population – poverty in Italy is a structural phenomenon and no longer residual as in the past. A poverty that today increasingly has the characteristics of “heredity”. Our country in Europe is the one in which the inter-generational transmission of unfavorable living conditions is most intense.
Education continues to be among the factors that best protect against the risk of poverty (today more than in the past), while work is no longer a sufficient cause of well-being: 47% of households in absolute poverty have the head of the family employed. In 2022, in the listening and service centers of the diocesan Caritas, the people met and accompanied increased by 12% compared to 2021. Overall, the weight of foreigners among the beneficiaries stood at 59.6%. The aid provided (only in the listening centers connected to the computerized network) was overall 3.4 million, for an average of 13.5 performances for patient/unit. The 2021 average was 6.5. The Report also analyzed for the first time the effect of “energy poverty”, i.e. the impossibility of guaranteeing a minimum level of energy consumption, which determines important consequences especially on the most fragile social groups, and which affects 9.9% of the population, with an increasing trend in recent years 10 years. Another focus is dedicated to the phenomenon of the “working poor”, i.e. those situations of poverty in which there is no lack of work, but the income is not sufficient for a dignified life. On this, a national investigation was carried out, of an experimental and qualitative nature, the first of a participatory nature ever carried out by Caritas Italiana, which involved in all phases of the study (from the planning of the research design to the analysis of the results) , a group of people who experience the condition of economic and working fragility first-hand. In this way the people are made protagonists and not just recipients of help
The Report also dedicates a reflection to the reform of Citizenship Income and to the transition towards the new measures of Support for training and work (SFL) and Inclusion allowance (Adi). The abandonment of the principle of selective universalism and the introduction of new requirements leaves some specific types of poor uncovered (for example homeless people). There are also serious doubts about the real possibility of finding a job within the 12 months of financial coverage for training guaranteed by the SFL. A more favorable situation, however, for the approximately 50 thousand families of foreigners who will be able to access the measure for the first time and the fact that by adding the amounts of the ADI with those of the Single Universal Allowance for dependent children, the new approach supports families more several.
“The presence of over 2.1 million poor families is a defeat not only for those directly involved, but also for the entire society – states Don Marco Pagniello, ddirector of CaritasItaliana -, because it thus finds itself having to deal with the loss of human, social and relational capital which produces serious and visible impacts also in terms of rights”. “From here – he continues – the choice of the title “Everything to lose”, which implies that in reality we can all say we are defeated in the face of these numbers”. “As Pope Francis asks us, in inviting us to celebrate the World Day of the Poor on 19 November, we are all called to “not look away from the poor.” We are therefore invited to start with the poor, to put them at the center of our communities, to do our part to try to reduce the inequalities and give relief and new opportunities to those who turn to us, to defeat poverty together”concludes Don Pagniello.