The other Italy

There is an Italy that is different from the official “narratives.” It is the one that gets up at dawn, sends its children to school and runs to work. We talk about the growing number of poor people, about those in difficulty, but this is not the other Italy. It is that “middle world,” that works and earns little because – it is indisputable – salaries are among the lowest in Europe.

These women and men are the ones who, once they have done the shopping, meticulously check the receipts, spend the winter in the cold turning off the radiators because the energy costs are too high. And there are many of them, even if they don’t say it. They are the ones who go, in absolute discretion, to the pawn shop or to the gold buyers to sell off the “joys” of their life, who fast “intermittently” out of necessity, pay their children’s fees, at school, at the gym, late, with difficulty, in installments. They are those (2024 ISTAT data) who almost never go out to dinner; they do everything they can at home; they dress like Chinese; they buy at discount stores.

They are people we meet at bus stops, on walks in parks and under porticoes, people with great dignity whose bills weigh like millstones. And in fact the "listening centers" and Caritas report a very considerable increase in families asking for help.

Without being sociologists, it is clear that in the line in front of the associations there is the lower-middle class, the legendary middle class, the one who has mortgages to pay for the house, for the car, for those three days at the seaside or in the mountains. Poverty on the skin is there. And, sooner or later, even “big politics” will realize it, the one that should be more aware than others of the ongoing metamorphosis of social stratification: the rich are getting richer, the wealthy are struggling, the middle class is sliding down.

Data from the distribution giants confirm that thefts in supermarkets have increased by about 20%. The protagonists are no longer just desperate people or kleptomaniacs, but others too. The bank figures show a drastic decrease in savings. Is it a coincidence? It is estimated that eight out of a hundred Italians give up on getting treatment because, given the waiting lists, they do not have the money to turn to private individuals or pay for insurance.

The other Italy is this one that does not discuss right, left or center, but, every month, does the accounts and, like our grandparents, has small notebooks where it writes down the expenses by hand. This “world” also breathes because the kids are in the oratories, go to school camps but struggle to pay for books, season tickets, a jacket and, perhaps, looks for firewood or pellets at a political price and will never go begging for a meal. But it exists (also due to financial difficulties, illnesses, divorces) and knocks, with discomfort, on many doors; the first is that of the “old”, the welfare that never closes.


Gian Mario Ricciardi
NP March 2025