The essay examines the reasons behind the conceptual conversion from old to new forms of poverty. At the same time it brings out the consequences of this formulation, which effectively makes poverty seem to disappear, because, while it is true that the traditional economic approach to the study of poverty has limitations in how it interprets and represents reality, where it is no longer essential goods that play a decisive role in defining life choices and conditions of wellbeing and/or privation, it is equally true that in putting everything on the same plane we run the serious risk of paralyzing any corrective action. In the light of these considerations, it concentrates on the state of poverty in Italy, bringing out its relative stability in the medium and long term, as well as the relation between serious forms of economic poverty and less dramatic ones. The result is a picture of an Italian model of poverty, founded on a high levels of inequality in the distribution of income, its relative persistence and a high intergenerational correlation, to which two other characteristics should be added: the gap between North and South, and the strategic role of the family.only subscribers can see the full article

This work aims to describe the course of salaries in the main Oecd countries during the last few decades. It considers both the dynamics of income levels and differentials. The second part of the work considers the characteristics of low-paid workers in some European countries and those of workers whose family income is at poverty level. only subscribers can see the full article

The inequality that is created in the labour market explains a very high proportion of the overall inequality in disposable incomes. Starting from this observation, the article presents a summary of the characteristics of inequality in incomes from labour, partly with a view to verifying, in a perspective of inequality, if the functioning of this market complies with what is theorized in the main theoretical approaches, or if there are significant divergences, with potentially important consequences for the characteristics and acceptability of inequality as well as for the planning of more effective policies to combat it.only subscribers can see the full article