In 2020, the estimate of the average monthly expenditure of households resident in Italy is 2,328 euros per month in current values. The decrease, compared to 2019, is 9%: as reported by Istat, it is the most pronounced contraction since 1997 (the year of the start of the historical series), which brings the average current expenditure figure back to the 2000 level. not surprising in the year of the coronavirus emergency and lockdowns, but it remains a record collapse. As the previous one demonstrates: in the two-year period 2012-2013, when the largest decline was recorded in the period considered before that of the year of Covid, the decrease compared to 2011 was a total of 6.4%. And if the average expenditure is 2,328 euros per month, it should be noted that 50% of families residing in Italy spent an amount not exceeding 1,962 euros in 2020.
So Italy went back twenty years, always remaining at two speeds: the difference in spending between the North-East and the South is 627 euros per family per month. Down from 722 euros in 2019, but still large. In 2020, the regions with the highest average monthly expenditure were Trentino Alto Adige (2,742 euros) e Lombardy (2,674 euros), while Puglia e Basilicata they have the lowest expenditure, respectively 1,798 and 1,736 euros per month. The highest share for food and non-alcoholic beverages continues to be recorded in Calabria, where it stood at 29.4%, compared to 25% observed in 2019. The levels and composition of expenditure vary according to the type of municipality of residence. Even in 2020, in fact, in the central municipalities of the metropolitan area, families spend more: 2,616 euros per month against 2,378 euros in the suburban municipalities of metropolitan areas and in those with at least 50 thousand inhabitants and 2,207 euros in municipalities up to 50 thousand inhabitants who do not belong to the peripheral circle of metropolitan areas. The greatest contraction in consumer spending (-10.1%) is recorded precisely in the central municipalities of the metropolitan area, also due to a greater consumption of those goods and services particularly penalized by the pandemic.
Compared to 2019, in general, the expenditure for food and non-alcoholic drinks (468 euros per month) and that for housing, water, electricity and other fuels, ordinary and extraordinary maintenance (893 euros per month, of which 587 euros per month) remain substantially unchanged. figurative rents). In fact, these are expenses that are difficult to compress, only marginally affected by government restrictions and which, on the contrary, may have been favored by the greater stay of families inside the home. The expenditure for all the other chapters, which in 2020 is worth a total of 967 euros per month, instead falls by 19.3% compared to the 1,200 euros in 2019. The most drastic decreases concern the expenditure chapters on which the containment measures have acted most and directly, i.e. Accommodation and catering services (-38.9%, 79 euros per month on average in 2020) and recreation, shows and culture (-26.4%, 93 euros per month), followed by chapters heavily penalized by limitation to circulation and sociability, such as transport (-24.6%, 217 euros per month in 2020) and clothing and footwear (-23.3%, 88 euros per month).