{"id":14216,"date":"2023-06-15T17:01:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T14:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=14216"},"modified":"2023-06-15T17:01:43","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T14:01:43","slug":"italy-georgia-melonis-new-armies-of-newly-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=14216","title":{"rendered":"Italy: Georgia Meloni’s new “armies” of newly poor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The new report by Coldiretti (Inflazione: 3,1 mln di poveri chiedono aiuto per mangiare<\/a>)- the National Farmers’ Confederation of Italy – leaves no room for misinterpretation. With food inflation at its highest in nearly 40 years, the euro zone’s third-largest economy is seeing a rise in the newly poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past year more than 3.1 million residents of the neighboring country have relied on food aid to survive. Of these, 630,000 – almost a fifth – are minors under 15 years of age. Most, about 2 million, are people between the ages of 16 and 64.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They mainly resort to “food banks” or distribution parcels. In total we are talking about 92 thousand tons of food on an annual basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this while households in Italy (and beyond) are “setting the table” for the most expensive summer in decades and economically vulnerable groups are not only growing in number, but also expanding in the social “sphere”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their ranks now include 356 thousand seniors over 65 years old. People of working age who lost their jobs. Small traders or artisans who put a lock on their businesses, “crushed” by the soaring prices of raw materials and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers with fixed-term contracts or who work “black” and are not entitled to state aid. Those employed in the agricultural sector, which in the Italian north are suffering from the effects of climate change, are now joining the “row”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The food supported groups also include over 90 thousand homeless people living on the street, in emergency shelters, in tents or in cars, as well as 34,000 people with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last twelve months, 48 thousand refugees in Italy from war-torn Ukraine were added to the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the three million who ask for help to feed themselves, Coldiretti reports, almost 1 in 4 (23%) is a migrant, unable to secure even daily bread in a country that is a key gateway to Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Increasing impoverishment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, the phenomenon in Italy worsens, leaving no part of the country unaffected. In the last three years – emphasizes Coldiretti – the number of people who requested food aid increased by 64% in the south, 22% in the north and 14% in the center of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 2 million people receive food support on an ongoing basis. The remaining million-plus newly bankrupts occasionally turn to assistance programs and structures as a last resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority do so by receiving food parcels. They prefer them because they better meet their needs, but also “out of shame”, the report points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They prefer this form of support”, it is clarified, “to the consumption of free meals in charitable structures”. Such “solidarity baskets” are distributed these days by Coldiretti, in the large agricultural market of Campagna Amica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each of them is packed with essential goods: from long-life milk (23%), pulses (5%), flour, jam, cheese and nuts (2%), to pasta (9%), tomato sauce (8%) juices fruit and sugar (5%), coffee and biscuits (4%), canned meat and tuna (3%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this honorable campaign, like many similar ones, seems like a “band-aid” on an ever-expanding “wound”. In its recent annual report, the socio-economic studies institute Censis found that 25.4% of Italy’s population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Already 5.6 million live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, even households that are above this “threshold” are now subject to severe deprivations to make ends meet. They range from food – such as meat and fish – to other goods, activities and services that, based on national standards, are considered necessary for a decent life.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Widening social inequalities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this day, meanwhile, Italy remains one of the few EU countries that does not have a national minimum wage. Instead, it is determined by sector, through collective agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practically fixed for years, real wages are now eroded by inflation. Therefore, it is estimated that one in ten workers in Italy is poor. In the youth ranks, the ratio is estimated to be one in six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, there have been several strikes in the private and public sectors, demanding an end to precarious, temporary and low-paid jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the name of fiscal discipline dictated by Brussels, the Meloni government prefers other types of interventions. As e.g. with one-off cuts to the tax burden on labour, which put crumbs in the pockets of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, he has imposed cuts in social benefits and is promoting the gradual abolition of Citizen’s Income, which until recently provided additional support to around 1 million poor people. Elsewhere, he significantly reduced the tax on excess profits in energy companies and approved a relaxation of the regulatory framework for short-term employment, also in view of the summer season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italy has an “army” of poor people, tourism will not save it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the absence of a meaningful opposition, he pointed out, the Meloni government has so far misled public opinion, confusing “issues of identity, cultural and individual rights” in the public debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise, Italy remains with its usual problems:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. \u039do large industry – except the three or four public utilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Very little private and public investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. No ability to spend the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Minimal infrastructure, massive tax evasion and immigration abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new report by Coldiretti (Inflazione: 3,1 mln di poveri chiedono aiuto per mangiare)- the National Farmers’ Confederation of Italy – leaves no room…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[818,390],"tags":[25,3780,644,4403,1444],"class_list":["post-14216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-politics","tag-eu","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-italy","tag-poor","tag-social-inequalities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14220,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14216\/revisions\/14220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}