The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The global trend is also confirmed in Italy: the new Oxfam report for the opening of the World Economic Forum of Davos, according to which the super rich – those with assets exceeding 5 million dollars (0.134% of Italians) -, at the end of 2021, held a total wealth equivalent to that possessed by 60% of the poorest Italians.
Between 2020 and 2021 the concentration of wealth in Italy grew: the share held by the richest 10% of Italians (6 times as much as held by the poorest half of the population) increased by 1.3 percentage points on an annual basis against a substantial stability in the share of the poorest 20% and a decline of the wealth shares of the other deciles of the population. The wealth in the hands of the richest 5% of Italians (owner of 41.7% of net national wealth) at the end of 2021 was higher than that held by the poorest 80% of our compatriots (31.4%).
The pandemic, the energy crisis and the increase in prices (the inflation rate is the highest for over 35 years) really only impact the economically weakest sections of the population. Because, despite the decline in the value of the financial assets of Italian billionaires in 2022, after the peak recorded in 2021, the value of the fortunes of the super-rich Italians (which are 14 more than at the end of 2019) still shows an increase of almost 13 billion dollars (+8.8%), in real terms, compared to the period before the pandemic. The gap between rich and poor, therefore, only widens.
In Italy today there are almost 2 million families (7.5%) and 9.4% of people (5.6 million) in absolute poverty: in 16 years the number of families with a level of expenditure insufficient to guarantee a minimally acceptable standard of living has doubled. According to Mikhail Maslennikov, policy advisor on economic justice at Oxfam Italy, “the increase in the incidence of poverty was mitigated, in the emergency, by public interventions to support families, but the prospects for a retreat are strong in the light of current factors of risk for the Italian economy, such as the impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and rising inflation. The support measures for families must continue and be better directed towards families in conditions of greatest need”.
Censis: Italy is poorer and more afraid
Source: Vanity Fair
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