Poverty in Italy is no longer a marginal or emergency phenomena, but rather a structural, stratified, and increasingly normalized situation that affects huge sectors of the population and is deeply ingrained in daily life. This is the conclusion of the new report "Italy's Poverty: Social Dynamics, Public Responses, and Media Reporting", commissioned by the Alliance Against Poverty in Italy and compiled by a group of scholars and social policy specialists.
The study presents a complex and multifaceted picture of poverty in Italy. Alongside families that are officially classified as poor—10.9% in 2024—a vast expanse of structural fragility is revealed: nearly 20% of Italian families reside perpetually in close proximity to the poverty line, with approximately 6% of them classified as "barely poor" and 8.2% as "barely above" the threshold. This precarious situation places millions of individuals at a constant risk of sudden accidents that are associated with everyday life events. The data regarding the working poor is particularly noteworthy: in 2024, over 10% of the employed population in Italy will be at risk of poverty, which is equivalent to approximately 2.3-2.4 million individuals, which is higher than the European average. Work no longer guarantees social inclusion, owing to a severe decrease in real wages of -7.5% between 2021 and 2025, the worst result among major OECD countries.