The Italy of invisible poverty
20% of the population at risk
On Thursday, February 5, at the Chiostro di San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome, the volume by Alleanza contro la povertà (Alliance Against Poverty) was presented, titled: ‘L’Italia delle povertà: dinamiche sociali, risposte pubbliche e racconto dei media’ (The Italy of Poverty: social dynamics, public responses, and media narrative). We were invited to participate in the conference by the Alliance spokesperson Antonio Russo, alongside institutions, journalists, associations, and Third Sector entities that, like us, are committed daily to understanding and offering responses to a phenomenon as complex as it is systemic in contemporary society.
“Poverty is not a crisis but a structural phenomenon that crosses genders and generations.” With these words, Antonio Russo opened the discussion, emphasizing how the emergency-based approach to the phenomenon of poverty in Italy is profoundly insufficient today. A problem that, as evident from the volume’s title, must be addressed in the plural: a complex, multifaceted, and multidimensional phenomenon that requires equally diversified measures, based on rights and grounded in a thorough understanding. This is precisely the central objective of the volume L’Italia delle povertà: to propose an analysis of poverty in Italy in its various dimensions, exploring its social and relational dynamics, the contexts in which it develops, and the ways it is represented in public debate and media narratives.
In short, a wide-ranging analysis that must begin with the observation of statistical data. The overall balance presents a rather complex picture: 20% of Italian families are consistently at or below the poverty line. A figure that, experts emphasize, has remained dramatically unchanged for fifteen years.
Within this percentage, alongside the 10.9% of households officially classified as living in absolute poverty, a crucial figure emerges: the area of the so-called ‘near poor.’ This is a broad segment—equal to 8.2% of families—living on a borderline just above the official poverty threshold, exposed to a constant risk of slipping into absolute poverty due to unforeseen events such as increases in utility bills or the birth of a child.
The ‘near poor’ segment is particularly insidious and difficult to intercept, both for social services and institutions—which lack specific intervention tools—and for local support networks. It is a condition that often remains silent, confined within domestic walls, consisting of daily deprivations, the struggle to reach the end of the month, and the inability to meet unexpected expenses. A ‘poverty next door’ whose existence we often ignore: “poverty has become chronic, it has entered normality,” commented Remo Siza, a member of the Alliance’s technical committee. “I couldn’t say if someone in my building lives in economic hardship; it is something we do not have the capacity to observe.” A poverty, therefore, that does not manifest only at the margins of the social fabric and does not only affect those far from our neighborhood, our country, or our daily “normality,” but is rooted in the very heart of our communities. We often imagine it as a distant phenomenon, while reality presents us with the image of a silent fragility, capable of hiding with extreme dignity right ‘behind the door next door.’
The Report shows that associations and Third Sector entities are often the ones offering responses to this ‘near poor’ segment, intervening where institutions fail to reach. The Report offers a very critical analysis of public policies to combat poverty, focusing on the Inclusion Allowance (Adi) and the Support for Training and Work (Sfl). These are measures that, according to the analysis, are often reduced to merely formal interventions, proving insufficient in generating a concrete and widespread impact on people’s lives. These institutional gaps leave large areas of vulnerability uncovered, placing the responsibility for care on the Third Sector, which finds no other adequate responses.
A final key element addressed in the Report concerns the media narrative. The Report highlights how the media contribute to building the public image of poverty, often favoring an emergency-based and quantitative narrative. This approach tends to simplify complex phenomena in favor of fragmented communication, following algorithmic logics that reward immediacy and emotional impact at the expense of depth and complexity. In a digital ecosystem that prefers rapid formats and high-engagement content, poverty is often reduced to ‘hit-and-run’ news or sensationalist headlines. Those who fall into the ‘gray areas’ of near poverty thus risk remaining voiceless, invisible both in statistics and in public debate.
The meeting was a valuable opportunity for us to listen and exchange ideas, necessary to increase our skills and knowledge on the subject. For us, having made the fight against poverty our mission, it is fundamental to continue reflecting on social inequalities and the different forms in which they manifest. Thinking about poverties, and not just poverty, provides us with an important point of reflection: considering poverty as a plural reality means avoiding the risk of not recognizing it when it manifests in different forms and when it hides behind only apparent well-being. At the center of our daily commitment against social inequalities, in fact, is precisely that segment of the ‘near poor,’ a semi-invisible category that often escapes statistics and welfare policies, but which we believe requires attention and targeted interventions before it is too late.
‘L’Italia delle povertà’ presents the image of a country where economic vulnerability is no longer an exception, but a widespread and structural condition. Addressing it means not only investing resources but rethinking the way we measure, govern, and talk about poverties, to de-normalize and give a voice to a problem that today, too often, remains invisible even though it is right before everyone’s eyes.
