Oxfam launches campaign for 4.5 million poverty-stricken Italians

Charity organization Oxfam Italy launched a campaign Friday to aid Italians who, it says, are living in absolute poverty.

According to the charitable organization founded in the British city of Oxford 75 years ago, one in four people in Italy are at risk of poverty and 7.6 percent of the population -- over 4.5 million people -- live in absolute poverty.

This compares to 4.1 million people or 6.8 percent of the population living in absolute poverty in 2014, according to Istat, Italy's agency of statistics, which also counted 1.47 million families or 5.7 percent of all families in Italy as living in absolute poverty that year.

Italy's population stood at 60.7 million at the end of 2016, according to Istat. The agency also noted that a family made up of two parents and two children under the age of 10 lives in absolute poverty if its monthly budget for essential items falls at or below 1,534.26 euros (1,686.79 U.S. dollars) in the North and 1,184.74 euros in the South.

The essential items are listed as education, food, health care, housing, and transportation.

One in 13 Italians and one in 10 children lacks sufficient food, a heated home, adequate clothing, and the means to seek medical care and education, according to Oxfam Italy.

The greater pockets of absolute poverty are concentrated in Italy's chronically underdeveloped, crime-ridden South, but they also exist in the outlying districts of central and northern cities, it said.

The charitable organization also pointed to the correlation between poverty and educational levels -- the higher the degree of education, the less the likelihood of poverty.

The report highlighted "deterioration in the conditions of the younger generations" in Italy, many of whom can't get jobs or only have access to unskilled positions that don't provide a decent living wage.

In March this year, the jobless rate for youth aged 15-24 stood at 34.1 percent, down from 37.1 percent one year ago and 42.8 percent in March 2015, according to Istat. Overall unemployment stood at 11.7 percent, compared to 9.5 percent in the eurozone.

Oxfam Italy also noted the widening gap between rich and poor in the Mediterranean nation, where in 1988-2011, the income of the richest 10 percent rose faster than that of the poorer 50 percent. Endit