23.1% of Italian households in 2024 faced a risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to a report by the Italian Institute of Statistics.

The corresponding figure in 2023 was 22.8%. Meanwhile, last year in Italy 10.3% of residents lived below the poverty line, while in 2023 the corresponding figure was 9.9%.

Istat adds that the greatest risk of social exclusion concerns single-parent families and citizens under the age of thirty-five who live alone. And in relation to the different geographical areas of the country, the highest rate of poverty and social exclusion is recorded in the South of Italy, with 39.2% of the total.

“The government of Georgia Meloni presents an Italy that does not exist. It has to find and get money from where it really exists,” commented the secretary of the centre-left CGIL union, Maurizio Landini.

And the president of the Italian Consumers’ Association, Massimilano Donna, stressed that “when official figures show that almost a quarter of the population is close to the poverty line, it goes without saying that we cannot speak of a civilised state.”