Italian Press on Eurostat’s new data – “Only Greece worse than us”

“The real income of Italian households is still falling, the gap with the EU is widening: higher only than Greece,” says Corriere della Sera. “Only Greece is worse than us,” reports La Repubblica.

However one puts it, the new Eurostat data shows many difficulties for Italian households, which are due to the price increases and inflation of the last years.

As Corriere della Sera points out – “the real gross disposable income of households in 2023 is falling, mainly due to high price inflation, and is more than six points below the 2008 level.” In terms of income, the Italian newspaper emphasizes that “Italy did better only than Greece” since “in 2022, the gross disposable income of Greeks was 72.1% compared to 2008, compared to 93.74% in Italy.”

Corriere della Sera notes that “the progressive increase in the inflation rate therefore creates a heavy redistributive problem that even the (national Italian) statistical institute ISTAT has mercilessly certified. The increase in prices in recent years,” continues the newspaper, “which is due to the rise in the price of energy goods, is more pronounced for families with low income and thus the so-called ‘inflation tax’ hits where it hurts the most.”

There is also some good news for the Italians. Long-term unemployment (i.e. staying at least one year without finding a job) decreased by 0.4%, the same decrease as overall unemployment. Eurostat shows that in Italy employment rates have increased to 66.3% in 2023 and that Neet rates are dropping significantly from 19.1% to 16%. Despite this, however, Italy remains last in the European ranking, as noted by La Repubblica.