ROME, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Italy's National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) said on Wednesday that the country's incidence of absolute poverty hit a record high level in 2020, interrupting a downward trend in the previous year.
Over 2 million families -- or 5.6 million individuals -- were estimated to live below the economic standards defining extreme deprivation in the country, according to the latest data.
The 2020 figure made 7.7 percent of Italy's 59.2-million-population compared to 6.4 percent in 2019 (or 9.4 percent against 7.7 percent in terms of individuals).
"After improving in 2019, absolute poverty in the pandemic year reached the highest level registered since 2005 (the year in which this specific analysis series began)," the institute noted in its report.
Still considering absolute poverty, the latest survey showed a 9.4 percent of households living in this condition in southern Italy against 7.6 percent in the north and 5.4 percent in the center, overall.
"While the incidence of families in absolute poverty turns out higher in the South...the largest increase was in the North, where it grew to 7.6 percent in 2020 from 5.8 percent in 2019," it explained, as the north was more affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The survey also showed an increase in absolute poverty among under-18 children (1.3 million affected in 2020 against 1.1 million in 2019, or 13.5 percent against 11.4 percent), and among non-Italian residents (29.3 percent against 26.9 percent).
"Citizenship plays an important role in determining the families' socio-economic status," ISTAT explained.
In fact, the latest data showed absolute poverty affected 8.6 percent of foreign families whose children hold Italian citizenship and 28.6 percent of those whose children have not yet acquired it.
Overall, absolute poverty in Italy here started to increase sensibly in the past decade, after the country suffered the impact of the global financial crisis in 2009.
The conditions of relative and absolute poverty in the country are defined by ISTAT (and constantly updated every year) on the basis of a series of coefficients, and change according also to the number of people in the household.
In 2017, Italy approved its first-ever anti-poverty provision to ensure stable support to families in distress. Worth between 400 euros and 530 euros per month on average per family, the measure provides a basic income to deprived households according to their own earnings.
The funding started with 2 billion euros (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and grew to 3.8 billion euros in 2019 and 4.3 billion in 2020, according to Italy's Institute of Social Security and Welfare (INPS). So far, it has benefitted a little more than 1 million poor households. (1 euro = 1.21 U.S. dollars) Enditem