EVEN FOR CARITAS IT’S A MATTER OF WAGES

Data from the latest Caritas Report on Poverty in Tuscany speak of a region going at two speeds: there are two segments of the population that tend to become increasingly distant. The fragile, expanding segment is that of families with children in which adults, in the middle age of life, work little and earn little, precarious and underpaid work. The factors of fragility and vulnerability are consolidating, as is evident from the condition of adult women who face a rejecting labor market and struggle to share care work in the family and society. The situation of young adults and middle-aged people is strongly represented among the people who come to the Caritas counters, more than 61 percent, and it is interesting to note that 16 percent of these help-seekers have jobs, but these do not turn out to be sufficient. This picture has a discouraging effect on the new generations: in Tuscany, the average age is growing, the elderly population is increasing, and there are fewer and fewer young people, not only because of the demographic crisis but because of life trajectories that push them out of the region. The problems collected by Caritas workers and volunteers over the past few years are mainly economic. The responses fielded by Tuscan Caritas are centered on food and basic necessities, but they also offer a range of diversified interventions (including economic subsidies) functional to the construction of accompanying pathways to help get out of deprivation in a lasting way. In the year 2023, the share of people encountered for the first time in the last 12 months (the “new poverty”) amounts to 29.3 percent. While that of people known and followed by Caritas Tuscany for at least 6 years (the “chronic situations”) is 39%. According to the report, the poverty level is almost at 12%, 11.7% , a worrying figure for a region that is changing very fast.

file:///Users/sandra/Downloads/Over-poverty-report.%CC%80-2024.pdf

https://archivio.caritas.it/materiali/Rapporti_poverta/report_statistico_2024.pdf