Inflation and war have eroded middle class incomes more than Covid. This is what emerged from the research «Poor families. The impact of inflation on Italians’ incomes”, a survey presented this morning in Rome and carried out by the National Observatory of Incomes and Families in collaboration with the Caf Acli and the Iref. The analysis highlighted a panel of over 600 thousand tax returns collected by Caf Acli in the last 4 years.
The result leaves little room for optimism. In the period analyzed, the number of families entering the poverty threshold increased: from 7.6% of declarations in 2022 to 9.8% in 2023. It is what the Acli call an “invisible tax”, not detectable on the pay slip, but which it severely limited spending choices, even affecting primary goods. In fact, from the data collected it emerges that 79% of the registrants analyzed have lost purchasing power compared to before Covid. Only 21% increased it. According to the ACLI, Italian families lost 240 euros per month due to inflation from 2019 to 2022.
«Serious and alarming data which confirms what we have been reporting for years. Furthermore, these are estimates that have unfortunately already worsened, given that they consider 2022 as the tax year, but in 2023 things have not gone any better” states Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumers Union.
«In fact, even if average inflation lowered last year compared to +8.1% in 2022, it still remains at a very high level, equal to 5.7%. Furthermore, in 2023 the discounts that had been introduced by the Draghi government to help families make it to the end of the month ceased, from petrol to the system costs of electricity bills, while with the reform of the measures to combat poverty the the audience of beneficiaries, with the risk of worsening poverty” concludes Dona.
And give
The Observatory, created in June 2022, has the aim of periodically collecting data relating to families to interpret their needs and act as a spokesperson for the Government for concrete proposals on family, economic and social policies. The research work that is proposed on an annual basis is truly unique in the survey panorama given that the work is done on official data (tax returns) and not on interviews or samples, data collected anonymously. The other strong point of the analysis is the fact that it is done on a panel, i.e. on the same families who have been followed for 4 years.