In recent years, inequality in the distribution of disposable income has grown in all advanced countries and today appears particularly high in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Close behind the countries with the highest concentration is Italy, with a value higher than the OECD average. In the United States, the concentration of income has taken on considerable importance, to the point of becoming a central element of the electoral campaign of candidates in the next presidential elections.
Over the last 15 years in the USA there has been a reduction in the median income, from almost 78 thousand dollars in 1999 to 73 thousand in 2014. The phenomenon has been accompanied by a growing polarization towards the extreme classes to the detriment of the so-called middle class, which today risks losing the primacy of the country's most representative economic class.
In Italy, the strong concentration observed in disposable income is a condition largely inherited from the past and which the recent crisis has only slightly worsened, despite the presence of a general contraction in income. According to the Bank of Italy, from 2012 to 2014 the share of the low-income population in Italy rose to around 21% of the total, against a decline in the middle class and substantial stability in the share of the rich .
The crisis that broke out in 2008 had an impact in Italy more on the amount of income than on their distribution. After reaching a peak in the early 2014s, average annual compensation of employees (evaluated at 2015 prices) took a downward trend and at the end of XNUMX, despite a slight recovery, returned to the levels of the late XNUMXs. On the other hand, support came from the growth in average pension incomes and those from buildings.
The overall effect is that annual net disposable income, in real terms, is today 54% higher than in 1977. Inequalities in our country tend to reproduce themselves between generations more than elsewhere. Today, educational qualifications, professions and tenure of the parents' home represent discriminating and significant factors in the income received: it is estimated that thirty-forty-year-olds in 2011 who had a university-educated parent at the age of 14 have an average income of 29% higher than those whose parents had a low level of education.
Interesting information is also obtained from the Bank of Italy's household budget survey on the composition of household income: in the mid-75s, approximately 2008% of the Italian population lived in households whose income derived for at least two-thirds from work . This share decreased steadily, with some short recovery periods, to reach 55% in 52. It has declined further since then, to around 2015% in 12. By contrast, the share of households whose income comes mostly (two-thirds) from pensions has grown steadily from around 20% in the mid-XNUMXs, and today it is equal to about XNUMX%.
One of the clearest trends highlighted by all the available data is the gradual worsening of the income conditions of the younger generations. The Bank of Italy, reporting INPS data, shows that between the end of the 20s and the first half of the XNUMXs, the weekly entry salary decreased in real terms by around XNUMX%. The decline was also accompanied by a slowdown in the progression of salary positions.
A recent Istat survey, analyzing the variables that determine inequalities in gross income from work (in turn considered the main cause of economic inequalities), observes how in Italy the median income of employed people aged between 25 and 39 is today lower to that of employed people aged between 50 and 59 in an amount equal to 20-40%, depending on the sector considered.
This is a difference that in absolute terms means between 5.600 and 11.300 euros less per year for the same job position. Young people are also more penalized by the greater precariousness of the job. On the basis of these elements, it is estimated that the expected income along the entire life cycle, for the younger generations, will be lower than the previous ones, and the gap will tend to widen during the retirement phase, due to the introduction of the contributory method.
