Risk of poverty in Italy and in the world: it is red alert Over 25% of Italian citizens are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, albeit with percentages that vary greatly from region to region and with a maximum peak of over 50% in Campania. These are some of the Istat data relating to 2021 that photograph an alarming situation. Moreover, in the current economic context characterized by rising prices and expensive energy, the prospects for the future do not bode well. Who are the new poor in Italy? What is the situation in other countries? What are the means of trying to stem poverty? Adnkronos and Expleo’s Datafactor have tried to answer these and other questions starting from the analysis of data obtained from different sources: Istat, Eurostat, INPS, World Inequality Report – a report by the Word Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics which provides estimates of global income and wealth inequality based on World Inequality Database results. But first of all, let’s clarify some concepts related to poverty. According to Istat, the risk of poverty or social exclusion is the percentage of people who find themselves in one of the following conditions: – risk of poverty: occurs when the net income is below the risk threshold set at 60% of the median of the individual distribution of net equivalent income – severe material deprivation: occurs when a person is in the material condition of not being able to pay bills or afford the purchase of certain common goods – low work intensity: occurs when the relationship between the number of months worked by a person during the reference year of income and the number of months theoretically available for work is less than 0.20
