Poverty and wealth in Italy: what the data really say.
by Marco Fortis
Reading the newspapers or following talk shows on TV one gets the clear impression that Italy is a country of poor people with wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. Furthermore, one is led to think that the recent inflation has irreversibly eroded the purchasing power of Italians. But is it really like that? The numbers tell a different story.
1.The least wealthy Italians are the richest in Europe
Let us first try to shed some light on the controversial topic of wealth.Which in all the most advanced countries the10%of the wealthiest citizens (the so-called tenth decile) holds the highest share of wealth, generally more than50%of the total, it is not news. And it's not even news that the50%of the poorest citizens (the so-calledbottom 50%) holds a very low fraction of it, normally less than10%. These are "normal" numbers in mature democratic capitalist societies, while in countries with dictatorships and oligarchies the gap can be even wider.
However, not a month goes by without some study center or NGO almost going so far as to ideologically criminalize wealth and its concentration, fueling an increasingly widespread sense ofresentmentin public opinion, especially among the less wealthy social classes. This way of treating economic information is somewhat questionable. In fact, many billionaires and millionaires are such not because they earn who knows what income but because they own controlling shares in the companies they have meritoriously created, generating GDP and employment; companies whose value, moreover, obviously tends to grow in periods of stock market boom such as the recent one, at least until the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and the United States with Iran. We should also distinguish between thewealth, i.e. real estate and financial assets, on the one hand, and iincomes, on the other hand, two very different things (normally most people live with the latter, not with the former), otherwise there is a risk of generating even greater confusion.
The real worrying news is rather different, namely that in recent years we have been witnessing a growing hyper-concentration of wealth in the hands of a few powerful people in some advanced and liberal countries, particularly in the United States.tycoon, with the risk that these super billionaires could have an increasingly significant influence - also through social media and the technologies they control - on politics and people. According to the Federal Reserve, in the United States the1%of the richest in the second quarter of 2025 held the31,1%of the country's total wealth and the richest tenth decile the67,5%of the same, against just the2,5%of the50%of less well-off Americans. In other words, in the United States the10%wealthiest of the population holds assets equal to 27 times that of50%of the poorest.
2.In Italy wealth is much less concentrated than in America and other large European nations
Having said all this, the concentration of wealth obviously also exists in Italy, but from here to claiming, as some have done, that ours is a country increasingly made up of poor people and is threatened, even in its democratic foundations, by a few super rich people with assets like Musk or Bezos, a lot goes by. And it is surprising that even some authoritative newspapers sometimes give voice to similar absurdities about Italy.
It is instead possible to draw an objective picture (and compared with other countries) of the concentration of wealth in Italy through theDistributional wealth accounts, whose numbers are updated quarterly by the European Central Bank on its website. From these numbers emerges first of all some "against the grain" news, namely that the50%of the Italians with the lowest assets have a net wealth (deducting debts) of831 billion euros(the data is updated to the second quarter of 2025), a number that is equivalent to more1/3 of the Italian GDP. This is the highest comparable asset in Europe for50%of the less well-off population, in front of the779 billionheld by the corresponding share of the “poorest” Spaniards, ai687 billionof the “poorest” French and to481billionof the “poorest” Germans. A ranking from which the distribution model of the Mediterranean countries emerges victorious over that of the Northern European countries, at least as far as this aspect is concerned.
3.The comparison between Italy, France, Germany and the United States
If we restrict, for simplicity, our analysis totop three countries in the Euro area, we can delve deeper into the topic. It is true that the10%of the richest Italians (the tenth decile) holds the59,9%of total wealth, a percentage which, although lower than that of Germany (60,5%), is higher than that of France (54,7%). But in Italy the50%of the less well-off (bottom 50%) holds the7,4%of wealth, a figure much higher than France (5%) and Germany (2,5%). So if we want to find out how many times the rich are richer than the poorest (i.e. the tenth decile divided by the bottom50%), in Italy we find the lowest value, equal to approximately 8 times, compared to 11 times in France, 24 times in Germany and the aforementioned 27 times in the USA. In other words, assuming that wealth is bad, there is no "Italian case" of exaggerated concentration of wealth.
The ECB also reports the per capita wealth values of50%of the poorest in every country, with Italy reaching its historic maximum in the second quarter of 2025, equal to 28,640 euros per inhabitant, ahead of France (21,210 euros) and Germany (12,580). Furthermore, another non-negligible aspect, the50%of the poorest Italians have a share of debts in their total assets (26,9%) lower than that of50%of the poorest French population (45,2%) and Germans (48,4%). In short, in France and Germany, not only are the poorestless rich than in Italybut they also have to worry about having much more debt.
4.Italian financial wealth beats Covid and inflation
Data on the wealth ofinstitutional sectorsrecently released by Istat and mainly sourced by the Bank of Italy, also confirm that the net financial wealth (RFN) of Italian families is the highest in Europe in relation to GDP and that, despite the pandemic, it grew significantly at current values from 2019 to 2024. Furthermore, according to the latest Bankit estimates, it also increased from the end of 2024 to the third quarter of 2025, thus beating the inflation that flared up in 2022-2023.
Cross-referencing Istat and Bankit data with consistent Eurostat data, we discover first of all that Italy's RFN was equal to226%of GDP, ahead of the RFN of Belgian families (211%), the Netherlands (202%), of France (171%), Germany (168%) and Spain (149%). Not only that. From 2019 to 2024, the RFN of Italian families went from 3,749 to 4,971 billion euros: +1,222 billion in five years (the data, according to current classifications, incorporate the RFN of non-profit organizations which however only represent a marginal share of the total).
The growth of the RFN ofItalian familiesfrom 2019 to 2024 it was of32,6%, significantly higher than that of inflation, i.e. the harmonized index of consumer prices, which increased overall in the period considered18,9%. Therefore, Italians are now much richer also in real terms compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic, despite the surge in inflation in 2022-2023. In fact, in the 2019-2021 sub-period the RFN increased by18,7%, while inflation only of3,9%. Then, in the subsequent sub-period 2021-2024, the RFN grew by11,7%, therefore a little less than inflation,+14,5%, but still maintaining the bulk of the real increase accumulated previously. Furthermore, as our population of1,3%from 2019 to 2024, the RFN per capita in Italy increased overall in five years of the34,3%, i.e. just under double inflation, with a significant increase in real terms.
At the end of 2024, the RFN of Italian families was still lower in real terms than2,4%compared to the historical maximum reached in 2021, it is true, but, according to the Bank of Italy data already published also on the Eurostat website, at the end of the third quarter of 2025 the RFN of Italians had reached 5,221 billion euros, with a further upward leap of5%at current values compared to the data at the end of 2024. Considering that in 2025 inflation increased by1,7%, it can be estimated that in the third quarter of 2025 the RFN of Italian families has already reached0,8%in real terms above 2021 levels, thus setting itself at a new all-time high.
Istat also provides data onnon-financial wealth of Italian families, consisting mainly of homes and cultivated land. The value of this wealth, which in itself has the nature of a non-liquid and long-term investment, from 2019 to 2024 grew less than not only the RFN but also inflation, only the5,9%, reaching the figure of 6,672 billion euros in 2024. This is, however, a value fictitiously eroded by the increase in prices in 2022-2023, as the majority of families maintained full possession of their homes and land, i.e. they did not sell them to obtain a monetary sum which would then have lost purchasing power compared to inflation. Therefore, we do not agree with Istat's method of adding RFN and non-financial wealth and then concluding that the sum, i.e. the total net wealth of Italian families, has lost its5%approximately of real value from 2021 to 2024. This is a questionable statement.
Returning to European data, it is finally interesting to note that the RFN of Italian families per capita grew the most at current values among the four largest Eurozone countries from 2019 to 2024 (+34,3%, as already mentioned), ahead of Spain (+30%), Germania (+28,5%) and France (+16,7%). Also considering the increase in consumer prices in the same period in other countries (i.e+18,3%in Spain,+22,3%in Germany e+17,5%in France), Italy also recorded the best, ahead of Spainperformanceof its RFN per inhabitant in real terms, which has instead been eroded in France and has increased very little in Germany.
5.The controversial topic of poverty
Another rather controversial and exploited topic to excess is that of poverty.
White-hot political controversies and media emphasis do not help to correctly frame the perimeter of poverty, a phenomenon that has often been referred to with concern in his most recent speeches by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, together with the issues of low real wages, illegal work and "pirate" contracts. Furthermore, the analysis is complicated by an uncommon chaos of statistics, which prevents clarity on real poverty, that of the most disadvantaged, of the suburbs and areas of marginalisation, supported by the incessant but not sufficient worthy action of many non-profit organisations. In fact, the poverty numbers in Italy are so many and conflicting that we run the risk of understanding little or nothing or remaining confused. Shot across the front pages of newspapers, statistics on poverty fuel the widespread impression that Italy is an enormously poor country and that the State does little or nothing to combat a plague whose real dimensions are often exaggerated for the purposes of political struggle and communication, thus preventing us from understanding where actual poverty lies and how.counter it effectively.
Instead, it would be useful for analysts and political forces to treat the issue of poverty in a less demagogic and instrumental way, trying to understand its real contours, net of the enormous audience oftax evaders“poor”. This is with the aim of defining a bi-partisan line of intervention, the only one that can truly act in the long term and in a structural way to mitigate the individual and social hardship of the truly poor.
In fact, the phenomenon of tax evasion, very widespread in Italy, further complicates the correct classification of poverty, as often recalled by a scholar in the field such as Alberto Brambilla, President of the Social Security Itinerari Study and Research Center, who has frequently drawn attention to the paradox of "poor" evaders. The levels of poverty and wages, as they are measured in Italy, are completely unrealistic, according to Brambilla, who in a recent article in the "Corriere della Sera" stated: «a G7 country in which the60%of the population declare incomes so low that they pay less than9%of the entire IRPEF only to then spend (before winnings) 160 billion in 2024 on gambling? Or that has mobile phone connections equal to130%of the inhabitants, including newborns? Is it credible that to calculate absolute and relative poverty, ISTAT makes less than 40 thousand families (out of over 26.5 million) fill out a sort of notebook, where the family should record all the expenses, and on that basis says that poverty is increasing? And how does poverty increase if, again analyzing tax returns in recent years, over a million taxpayers have moved from income brackets of up to 20 thousand euros to higher ones?".
Nor, when evaluating the economic conditions of families, even in comparison with the incomes and wages of other countries, is the large amount of contributions and aid of all kinds provided in Italy taken into account. The single allowance for children (AUUF) alone, underlines Itinerari Social Security, "for salaries and incomes up to 25 thousand euros with one child is worth over 2,200 euros a year". The ISEE mechanism is an "invitation" todeclare as little as possible to the tax authoritiesso as to be able to fall into the categories authorized to receive the various aids and benefits, so Brambilla asks himself: «Isn't the ISEE more like the "factory of the poor" than helping to reduce poverty»?
The poverty statistics themselves sometimes clash enormously with each other. For example, how is it possible that in Italy the number of absolute poor in 2024, according to Istat, is 5.7 million (of which 3.9 million Italians and 1.8 million foreigners), while the number of people severely deprived from a material and social point of view (that is, who cannot afford 7 or more of the 13 fundamental individual and family needs identified by the European criteria, see below) is only 2.7 million (against 3.9 million people in Spain, 4.3 million in France and 5.2 million in Germany)? Even the trends of these two indices are strongly discordant: in fact, from 2014 to 2024 the number of absolute poor in Italy estimated by Istat grew by 1 million and 595 thousand people, while the number of severely deprived individuals, also estimated by Istat but with Eurostat criteria, collapsed by as many as 4 million and 676 thousand people! Not only that. According to Eurostat, another indicator of poverty, namely the percentage of people who subjectively believe they are poor, has significantly decreased in Italy from 2014 to 2024, going from40,1%al18,7%(percentage significantly lower than those of Spain,21,9%, and France,21,8%), while in the same period the percentage of people in relative poverty in Italy, according to Istat, increased from12,8%al14,9%. Which of these different numbers mentioned above should we believe?
To provide some clarity on the topic, we will present here an overview of the main statistics available on poverty and individual income, distinguishing them into two groups, those that are improving and those that are worsening.
6.The statistics that say that poverty is worsening in Italy
The absolute poor.As lavoce.info underlines (16 October 2025), "in ten years the number of people in absolute poverty has increased by around one and a half million, from 4.1 to 5.7 (...) The situation has worsened especially for families in the North, for the larger ones and for those made up of foreign citizens". Who are the absolute poor?They are those who live in families below the so-called absolute poverty line. The latter represents the minimum expenditure necessary to acquire a certain basket of essential goods and services. The data is calculated by Istat, according to which in 2024 the absolute poor in Italy reached a new record of 5.7 million people. Some experts, such as the aforementioned Alberto Brambilla, criticize these numbers and the ways in which they are estimated. Furthermore, the record of 5.7 million absolute poor, announced by Istat on 14 October, was much emphasized by the opposition against the government in office but this number, in truth, constitutes a double-edged sword. In fact, according to Istat historical series, the absolute poor grew in the last two-year period 2023-24 by just 70 thousand people, while in the previous eight years, from 2014 to 2022, they increased by over 1 and a half million.
The relative poor.They are those who live in families below the so-called relative poverty threshold. The latter, explains Istat, for a family of two members is equal to the average expenditure per person in the country (i.e. the national expenditure per capita, equal to approximately 1,201 euros, and is obtained by dividing the total consumption expenditure of the families by the total number of members); for families with a number of members other than two, the threshold is calculated by applying the Carbonaro equivalence scale whose coefficients allow the effect of economies of scale to be taken into account. For example, the poverty threshold for a family of four people is 1.63 times that for two members (1,985 euros), the threshold for a family made up of a single person is 0.6 times that for two members (731 euros), while the threshold for a family of six people is 2.16 times (2,631 euros).The percentage of individuals in relative poverty in 2024 was, according to Istat, equal to14,9%of residents, up compared to 12.8% in 2014.
7.The statistics instead say that poverty is decreasing and that per capita income values are increasing
People at risk of poverty or social exclusion - Europe 2030 (AROPE).It is the indicator recommended by the European Union to measure the phenomenon of poverty and social exclusion in member countries. It is composed of the intersection of three sub-indexes:a) the percentage of people at risk of monetary poverty, that is, who live in families with a net equivalent income lower than a poverty risk threshold, set at 60% of the median of the individual distribution of net equivalent income. The net income considered for this indicator complies with the European definition and does not include notional and in-kind components, such as notional rent, meal vouchers, other non-monetary fringe benefits (with the exception of the company car) and self-consumption. The income reference year is the calendar year preceding the survey year;b) the percentage of people living in families in conditions of serious material and social deprivation. These are people who register at least seven signs of material and social deprivation out of a list of thirteen (seven relating to the family and six relating to the individual) indicated below. Familiar signs: 1) not being able to bear unexpected expenses (the reference amount for unexpected expenses is equal to approximately 1/12 of the value of the annual poverty threshold calculated with reference to two years preceding the survey); 2) not being able to afford a week's holiday away from home a year; 3) be in arrears in payments of bills, rent, mortgage or other type of loan; 4) not being able to afford an adequate meal at least once every two days, i.e. with proteins from meat, fish or equivalent vegetarian; 5) not being able to adequately heat the home; 6) not being able to afford a car; 7) not being able to replace damaged or out-of-use furniture with others in good condition. Individual signs: 8) not being able to afford a usable internet connection at home; 9) not being able to replace worn clothes with new items of clothing; 10) not being able to afford two pairs of shoes in good condition every day; 11) not being able to afford to spend a small sum of money on personal needs almost every week; 12) not being able to afford to regularly carry out paid leisure activities outside the home; 13) not being able to afford to meet family and/or friends to drink or eat together at least once a month;c) the percentage of people living in families with low work intensity. It is the percentage of people living in families for which the ratio between the total number of months worked by family members during the income reference year (the one before the survey year) and the total number of months theoretically available for work activities is less than 0.20. The AROPE indices are calculated by national statistical institutes on the basis of European criteria and transmitted to Eurostat. From 2015 (when the current time series begin) to 2025, the percentage of the population at risk of poverty or social exclusion fell in Italy from28,4%at 22.6%, the lowest value recorded so far. With a clear convergence towards the typical levels of Germany and France.
Subjective poverty.It is an indicator released by Eurostat. The percentage of people who feel poor has fallen sharply in Italy since40,1%from 2014 to18,7%in 2024.
GDP per capita at constant prices.From 2014 to 2024, according to the European Commission, Italy recorded the strongest growth in GDP per inhabitant in real terms (+13,8%, equivalent to a+1,3%annual average) among the G7 countries, behind only the United States (+19,5%), ahead of France (+8,2%), Japan (+7,6%), United Kingdom (+7,3%), Germania (+5,4%) and Canada (+1,7%). Over the decade, only Italy and the United States recorded average annual growth above+1%. It is clear that with the increase in GDP per inhabitant, the previously mentioned decline in the percentage of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion was also recorded.
The purchasing power of consumer families.Since data on purchasing power are constantly exploited in the political struggle, with regular accusations against the current government of impoverishing Italians, it may be useful in the name of correct economic information to do a little history of purchasing power in Italy. Few know or remember that the gross disposable income of Italian families had to endure one of the largest collapses ever in modern history between 2007 and 2013, of the order of 140 billion euros in real terms: almost like a war. This is the fault of two consecutive large financial crises imported from abroad (US subprime mortgages and Greek debt) and the subsequent austerity. But from 2014 onwards the purchasing power of Italians has gradually and steadily recovered ground, with all governments and executives of all colours. Why, then, shoot down purchasing power every day as if there were no tomorrow, fueling harmful misinformation? In fact, our purchasing power increased from 2014 to 2016 by 30.4 billion under the Renzi government. It grew by another 9.4 billion in 2017 with the Gentiloni government. It essentially remained constant in 2018-2019 with the first Conte government, despite the worsening of the European economic situation. Then, leaving aside 2020, with the Covid tragedy, purchasing power grew from 2019 to 2022 levels by 6.9 billion with the Draghi government, despite all the difficulties in emerging from the pandemic. Finally, it grew by a further 28.7 billion from 2023 to 2025 with the Meloni government, despite the weight of the inflation generated by the Russian-Ukrainian war.