The gap between poor and rich is widening, especially in Italy. According to an OECD report published today, in our country the average income of the richest 10% of the population is 11 times that of the poorest 10%. The OECD average - which is also at record levels - does not exceed 9,6 times.
1% of the Italian population holds 14,3% of net national wealth, practically three times as much as the poorest 40%, which does not exceed 4,9%. Furthermore, the richest 20% hold 61,6% of the wealth, while the bottom 20% hold only 0,4%.
Furthermore, even in the richest segment, the distribution is clearly unbalanced in favor of the top: the richest 5% of the population in fact holds 32,1% of net national wealth.
GINI COEFFICIENT
The Gini coefficient, which measures the differences in the distribution of wealth (ranging from 0 to 1 and the higher it is, the greater the disparity) in Italy rose from 0,313 in 2007 to 0,327 in 2013. It is the sixth highest coefficient in Europe and 13th in the OECD.
DROP IN INCOME
The poorest 10% of the population in Italy experienced a 4% drop in income per year between 2007 and 2011, while the average income fell by 2% and that of the richest 10% by only 1%.
POVERTY RATE
The poverty rate in our country rose to 14,9% in 2013, more than 4 percentage points more than in 2007, while the average for the OECD area rose from 7,7% in 2007 to 9,9% in 2013.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE AGE GROUPS
Children are the age group with the highest incidence of poverty: 17% in Italy, against the OECD average of 13%. Young people aged between 18 and 25 also have an above-average poverty rate (14,7% against 13,8%), while those over 65 (9,3%) fare better than in the rest of the OECD ( 12,6%). Among adults, the poverty rate is 12,1% (OECD 9,9%) and the "working-poor" - those who have a job but receive an income below the poverty line - reach 12%, while in the OECD stop on average at 8,7%.
THE WEIGHT OF THE PRECARIAT
The OECD highlights how inequality in labor income increased by 0,65% in Italy between 2007 and 2011 mainly due to a diffusion of atypical contracts that is unparalleled in the OECD area. In Italy, 40% of those employed in 2013 worked with atypical contracts against the OECD average of 33%.
Workers with atypical contracts in Italy on average earn 25% per hour less than workers with traditional contracts. 53% of atypical people are the main income earner in a family (against 48% OECD), therefore their families often find themselves on the poverty line. Italy is, after Greece, the OECD country with the largest portion of families of atypical workers at risk of poverty, 37% against the OECD average of 27%.
NET WEALTH
As for the net wealth of Italians, according to OECD calculations, for the poorest 20% it fell by 2006% per year between 2012 and 25, against a 0,8% decline for the richest 20%. For the rest of the population, i.e. the middle class, the decline was 2,1%.
DEBTS
Italian families are the least inclined to make debts: only 25% resort to it against 80% of Norwegians and Americans. Furthermore, only 2% of Italian families can be considered excessively indebted, against 24% in the USA and 30% in Norway.
