Poverty in Italy

In 2018, over 1.8 million households in absolute poverty (with an incidence of 7.0%) were estimated, for a total of 5 million individuals (incidence of 8.4%). There were no significant changes to 2017 exception made for a decrease in overall household spending in real terms.

The intensity of poverty, that is how much poor households’ monthly expenditure is on average below the poverty line in percentage terms, or “how poor the poor are “, reached 19.4% in 2018 (it was 20.4% in 2017), from a minimum of 18.0% in the Center to a maximum of 20.8% in the South. The rateof households in absolute poverty was considerably higher in the Southern area (9.6% in the South and 10.8% in the Islands) compared to other areas (6.1% in the North-west and 5.3% in both the North-east and the Centre).

The incidence of individuals in absolute poverty was 11.1% in the South, 12.0% in the Islands, while in the North and the Centre it went down to 6.9% and 6.6%, respectively (7.2% in the North-west, and 6.5% in the North-east).

Compared to 2017, the incidence values remained stable when comparing different types of household municipality of residence at the national level. In the North, the metropolitan centre municipalities showed higher incidence of poverty (7.0%) than metropolitan suburb municipalities, municipalities with over 50,000 inhabitants (5.4%) and the remaining smaller municipalities (5.7%). In the Centre, on the other hand, the metropolitan centre municipalities recorded the lowest incidence (3.5% of poor households against 5.6% of the metropolitan suburb ones, and municipalities with over 50,000 inhabitants, and 6.4% of smaller municipalities). The comparison by municipal typology confirmed the disadvantage of the South and Islands: the incidence of households in absolute poverty
in the metropolitan centre municipalities was 13.6%, and reached 15.7% in the South alone.