Istat figures contradict the perception of poverty, but low wages remain a problem

Istat refutes these perceptions. Whilst almost the entire public is convinced that absolute poverty is rampant across the country, the statistics agency contradicts this common belief. Officially, Istat uses the term ‘stability’ in its report to describe the trend in absolute poverty in 2025, but as we shall see, there has actually been an improvement compared with 2024, albeit a modest one in the tenths of a per cent range. Before delving into the figures and the necessary details, it is worth recalling that, as of 1 January 2024, the Meloni government abolished the Citizenship Income.

A flagship policy of the Five Star Movement, the Rdc was replaced by alternative measures such as the Inclusion Allowance and the enhancement of the Universal Child Allowance. The figures show that in 2025, 2.1 million households and 5.4 million individuals will be living in absolute poverty in Italy; as a percentage of the population in 2025, households will account for 8 per cent whilst individuals will account for 9.3 per cent. The 2024 figures were 8.4 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively. This represents a slight decrease of around 0.4–0.5 percentage points. Istat had already classified 2024 as ‘stable’ compared with 2023, the final year of the Citizenship Income scheme.

If we narrow our focus to Italian households alone, the incidence of absolute poverty falls to 5.9 per cent, only to rise sharply to 29.4 per cent when we consider households composed exclusively of foreign nationals. The difference is very significant – around 23 percentage points – and leads us to conclude that the core of absolute poverty is represented by immigrant households.

From a regional perspective, absolute poverty is more widespread in the South (9.6 per cent, compared with 7.7 per cent in the North-West), but it is across the North as a whole that the relative majority (44.5 per cent) of those experiencing severe material deprivation are found. Absolute poverty is higher amongst children (12.5 per cent) than amongst the over-65s (6.1 per cent). Furthermore, Istat also measures the intensity of poverty (“how poor the poor are”) and, in this case too, the figure for 2025 remains stable. Obviously, the larger the household, the greater the risk of falling into poverty. Similarly, the poor are more concentrated amongst those who live in rented accommodation (a total of one million households).

Absolute poverty measures the ability to purchase essential goods (food, healthcare, transport, utilities, rent) and is therefore subject to fluctuations, particularly due to inflation trends. Given the average annual inflation rate for 2025 of 1.5 per cent, this also explains the ‘stability’, whilst next year’s figures are very likely to bring bad news due to rising inflation.

Istat also calculates relative poverty, which is a measure of inequality as it is based on the deviation from the per capita expenditure of Italians. Well, the relative poverty threshold rose very slightly in 2025: from €1,218 to €1,231. There are 2.8 million households in this situation, amounting to 8.7 million individuals; compared with 2024, the indicator for households remained unchanged, whilst the one relating to the total number of people in relative poverty improved by one decimal place.

Having addressed the debunked perception regarding the scale of the ‘two forms of poverty’, a further consideration can be devoted to the issue of low wages. As we know, the purchasing power of large sections of the workforce has lagged far behind, but looking at the data on both absolute and relative poverty, this trend has not yet led to ‘the floor giving way’ – that is, a complete descent of wage earners into the ranks of the poor.

The term ‘working poor’, which we often use, therefore does not accurately capture this phenomenon, but that is no good reason to postpone tackling the problem of low wages. If for no other reason than to prevent the 2026 poverty figures – due to the combined effect of rising inflation and a further loss of purchasing power – from showing, this time for real, a surge in the number of people living in absolute poverty.