An Italy stable in its poverty is the one photographed by the latest ISTAT report which collected data for 2023. There are 2.2 million families in absolute poverty, or 8.4% of the total. And a third of them have at least one foreign member. The incidence, however, decreases to 6.3% when the family members are only Italian. The phenomenon hits 5.7 million people hard, or 9.7% of Italy's total population. “Relative family poverty” is also stable at 10.6%. The condition of minors at the national level is also stable compared to 2022, with the highest value since 2014, but there are signs of worsening for children aged 7 to 13 years in the Center (the incidence is increasing from 10.7% to 13.9%). . The intensity of poverty of families with minors, equal to 20.1%, is higher than that of all poor families (18.2%), demonstrating a more marked situation of precariousness. In addition, more than 1.7 million foreigners live in absolute poverty, with an individual incidence of 35.1%, more than four and a half times higher than that of Italians (7.4%).
Absolute poverty is more prevalent among families who live in rented accommodation. In 2023, 18.1% of families residing in Italy pay rent for the accommodation in which they live; 72.8% tend to own their own home. There are approximately one million poor renting families, or 46.5% of all poor families, with an incidence of absolute poverty of 21.6% compared to 4.7% of those living in owned housing (nearly 907 thousand families). For these families, the highest incidence is recorded in the South (23.8%), followed by families in the North and Center (respectively 21% and 19.9%). For families who own the accommodation in which they live, the incidence is lower, with a maximum in the South (6.7%) and a minimum in the Center (3.6%). Those aged 35 and 44 are the poorest (equal to 24.9%), while those with an elderly reference person, aged 65 and over, are 17.3%. Rented families composed entirely of Italians present absolute poverty incidence values two and a half times lower than those of families with at least one foreigner (respectively 15.0% and 37.0%); It should be noted that among poor families with foreigners, 76.8% live in rentals and only 12.5% own their own accommodation compared to 32.7% and 53.9% of Italian-only poor families, respectively.
