The recovery underway at a global level, more than on past occasions, was not very inclusive. Between 2005 and 2015, the real incomes of two-thirds of households in 25 advanced countries stagnated or fell, against growth of about 2% on average in the previous decade.
The OECD in a recent report observes that in most advanced countries since 2007 there has been a deterioration in the quality of working conditions, a phenomenon that has become particularly evident in the United Kingdom, Greece, the United States, Hungary and Italy .
Among the OECD countries, the recovery underway since 2010 has not only not reversed the current trend of growing polarization in the distribution of income between different classes of recipients, but in some cases has accentuated it. Compared to 2007, in 2014 workers' incomes were on average 1,4% lower. The figure is the result of a drop of 13,8% among the lowest and an increase of 0,7% among the highest.
The growing disparity in income growth has caused, among other things, a change in the weight that different classes have on the overall population (polarization). An interesting investigation in this direction was recently carried out by the International Monetary Fund with reference to the United States.
In the country, since the early 58s, the average income bracket has gradually decreased from 48 to about XNUMX% of the population. The downward movement of a significant share of middle-income families was generalized and independent of the head of household's age, education level and race.
In Italy, where the recovery has been slower than in many OECD countries, and where the labor market is still experiencing a difficult moment, the worsening of the economic conditions of a large number of families has recently been highlighted by numerous documents.
According to Istat, the population exposed to risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2015 reached almost 17,5 million units, about 4,6 million more than the target set in the Europe 2020 strategy. In percentage terms, this is 28,7 % of the population, a value similar to that of Spain but much higher than that of France (17,7%), Germany (20%) and the United Kingdom (23,5%).
