• Istat: Italy's GDP in 2020 at -8.9%, an exceptional contraction

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  • Istat: industrial production -11.4% in 2020, worst figure since 2009

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04 March 2021

Absolute poverty returns to grow and has hit the record since 2005. The preliminary Istat estimates of 2020 indicate values ​​of the incidence of absolute poverty in growth both in family terms (from 6.4% in 2019 to 7.7%), with over 2 million families, both in terms of individuals (from 7.7% to 9.4%) which amounted to 5.6 million.

According to preliminary estimates, in 2020 there are over 2 million families in absolute poverty (7.7% of the total, from 6.4% in 2019, + 335 thousand) for a total number of individuals equal to about 5.6 million ( 9.4% from 7.7%, which is over 1 million more than the previous year).

The increase in absolute poverty recorded in 2020 is greater in the north of the country and concerns 218 thousand families (7.6% from 5.8% in 2019), for a total of 720 thousand individuals.

The other divisions also worsened but to a lesser extent.

The South remains the area where absolute poverty is highest: it involves 9.3% of families against 5.5% in the Center.

This is what emerges from the preliminary Istat estimates published in Statistica today.

In general, the incidence of absolute poverty, explains Istat, grows especially among families with an employed reference person (7.3% from 5.5% in 2019).

This is over 955 thousand families in total, 227 thousand more families than in 2019. Among the latter, more than half have a worker or assimilated as a reference person (the incidence goes from 10.2 to 13.3%), in addition to one fifth a self-employed worker (from 5.2% to 7.6%).

In the year of the pandemic, the improvements recorded in 2019 disappeared. After 4 consecutive years of increase, the number and share of families (and individuals) in absolute poverty had in fact decreased significantly, while remaining on values ​​much higher than those preceding the 2008 crisis. With the exception of single-member families, which have a stable incidence of poverty (5.7%), a wider spread of absolute poverty concerns all families, but to a greater extent those with a greater number of components.

In fact, if up to four members the increase remains below two percentage points or a little more (for families of two it goes from 4.3% to 5.7%, for those with three from 6.1% to '8.6%, for those with four from 9.6% to 11.3%), for those with at least five people it worsens by more than four points, going from 16.2% to 20.7%.

In 2020, Istat also records a record in household consumption expenditure.

The rise in absolute poverty is framed in the context of a record decline in household consumption expenditure (on which the poverty indicator is based).

According to estimates, in fact, in 2020 the average monthly expenditure returns to the levels of 2000 (2,328 euros; -9.1% compared to 2019).

Only food and housing costs remained stable, while those for all other goods and services decreased drastically (-19.2%).