Giorgia Meloni abolishes Italy’s citizens’ income

2023-05-03 12:59:18

Et was September 2018 when the Italian politician Luigi di Maio raised his fist to the sky from the balcony of the government palace Palazzo Chigi and enthusiastically told his supporters about the fulfillment of a dream: “We made it, today we create poverty off,” shouted the then-leader of the left-wing populist Five Star Party to the crowd. The budget had just been passed, which provided for the so-called citizen money, a new social assistance for all low and non-earners.

Of course, poverty has in no way been abolished; on the contrary, it has increased. According to a report by the consulting institute Censis, in 2021, the period with the latest available data, more than 1.9 million households in Italy lived in poverty, 7.5 percent of all households. That was a total of 5.6 million people or 9.4 percent of the population – and thus 1 million more than in 2019. A good 44 percent live in southern Italy or on the islands. “More than one in four Italians is at risk of poverty or social exclusion,” Censis reported. The high inflation, which caused food prices to rise sharply in Italy, worsened the situation last year.