NAPLES, CAMPANIA, ITALY – 2020/04/22: Volunteers delivers a package of basic necessities, with … [+]
A basket is hanging from a balcony in a street in Naples. The sign affixed reads, “Those who can, put something in, those who can’t, help yourself.” Taking the food from the basket are people who used to work as cleaners, in restaurants, as artisans, and in shops. These are Italy’s “new poor” and they are a result of the coronavirus crisis.
When Italy’s COVID-19 lockdown began in early March, it resulted in an estimated 11.5 million Italians losing their income and having to apply for state aid, amounting to half the official workforce.
Two months on, and their loss of income is already taking its toll as the country sees the biggest jump in numbers of those in poverty since the aftermath of WWII.
Before coronavirus struck, Italy was already struggling with 9% unemployment. Having not fully recovered from the 2008 global financial crisis or the 2010-2012 eurozone debt crisis, Italy’s new economic emergency is coming after 10 years of decline.
Agricultural lobby Coldiretti has now estimated that another 1 million Italians will have to turn to food banks and other forms of assistance as a result of losing their jobs under COVID-19 lockdown.
At Banco Alimentare, Italy’s largest food bank, there has been a 40% increase in the number of requests, many of those coming from the middle classes. “We are talking about educated people who are able to track us down on the internet,” Giovanni Bruno, who runs the food bank, told the Wall Street Journal.
Many businesses that closed temporarily under coronavirus lockdown now look likely to never reopen. One video from mid-May shows Gian Mario Fenu, owner of a pizzeria in Sardinia, smashing the interior of his restaurant with a hammer. He said that with coronavirus rules, it would cost him more to reopen than to close permanently.
Hussain Sajjad, who owns Ristorante Noemi in Venice, has put off reopening despite having sanitized and prepared the interior space. “Under coronavirus regulations, instead of seating 130 people,” says Sajjad, “I’d be able to have around 45.” With many of his customers being tourists, he doesn’t consider it worth reopening for the moment. “I switched off all the fridges and gave the food to the poor before it expired,” he says.
The state has promised aid to those with slashed incomes, but it has been agonizingly slow in arriving, and barely sufficient. The government had promised €600 relief money for self-employed and part-time workers for the month of March. As the end of May nears, many are still waiting to be paid and have little hope for the April installment.
However, there are also many workers now unemployed who have been unable to claim for this relief. According to Italy’s National Institute of Statistics, some 3.5 million Italians work in the “shadow” economy, undertaking illegal and undeclared work, which has prevented them from accessing the government’s financial aid.
In mid-May, the state recognized these workers and declared a €55 billion support package for those who didn’t qualify for the previous financial relief, but many are too fearful of revealing their participation in illegal work to claim.
Many Italians are now being forced to accept aid from criminal organizations who are capitalizing on the government’s delays and those fearing to expose their involvement in undeclared work. The Mafia has been distributing food packages and providing loans in the South of Italy, in a move “to exploit the desperation of the new poor from coronavirus,” according to the mayor of the Sicilian capital Palermo, Leoluca Orlando.
The economic plight has had even more devastating consequences for some families. In early May, a business owner in Naples committed suicide after feeling “oppressed by the consequences of the economic crisis resulting from coronavirus,” La Repubblica reports.
Italians are only at the beginning of this next emergency. Consequences will continue to be felt, and more strongly, for the next months and even years. Italy’s economy is set to contract by 9.5% this year, the most in the European Union after Greece. The tourism sector is responsible for around 13% of Italy’s GDP, but its future looks uncertain for this year at least.
For those left unemployed by the coronavirus lockdown, the future looks bleak as there will be few job opportunities in the coming months.
Other countries globally are also starting to see the economic effects of lockdown, with 1 million Britons—10 times the average—applying for government aid, and tens of millions of Americans already out of work.
