ITALIAN COUNTRY REPORT

POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

In Italy the official reports on poverty and social exclusion are completed by ISTAT ( Italian National Statistic Bureau) and they are based on family consumption approach. The poverty line (the level of consumption that a family needs to escape poverty) is estimated on a monthly consumption approach of 1001,03 € in the 2011 for a family of two people. For a family of four people the poverty line is 1342,22€.

Italy is probably the European country with the widest and historically deep-rooted  regional disparities within it.This is true not only in terms of economic performances, but also in terms of poverty and social exclusion.                For example Sicilia, a southern region, is the region presenting the highest percentage of families (25,5%) whose consumption per capita is below the relative poverty line, while Veneto, a region located in the North-East, has only 4% of families that can be considered poor, 21,5% less than Sicilia.
The two tables below show the proportion of relative and absolute poverty in Italy, comparing 2010 and 2011.The most important datum  is that poverty is higher in the South and Islands.( source:Istat)

The graph shows the evolution of poverty in Italy between 2007 and 2011 

Poverty has increased since 2011, when it began a big economic crisis, which is still underway in Italy and in a lot of countries all over the world. 

POV