Milan, 3 February 2024 – The average Italian family has spent in the last two years 4,039 euros more due to the inflation boom recorded between 2021-2023, equal to +14.2 percent. If, in fact, the annual expenditure of families in current terms in 2021 amounted to 21,873 euros, in 2023 it rose to 25,913 euros (+18.5 percent). In this last two-year period the average monthly increase was equal to 337 euros.
The most significant increases affected airline tickets, electricity and gas bills and food products (sugar, rice, olive oil, long-life milk, butter, etc.). To say it is theCGIA research office. A blow which, obviously, has especially penalized the most economically fragile families. The general increase in prices, in fact, has caused a loss of purchasing power that we have not remembered for at least 25 years. In other words, in the last 24 months many households have spent more and brought home significantly fewer goods and services.
Small commercial activities are also penalized
If in the last two years the sales of large-scale distribution have held up, those of artisan workshops and neighborhood shops they grew slightly in nominal terms, but the contraction in real terms was worrying. The result is there for all to see: in the historic centres, but also in the suburbs, the number of removed signs and shop windows with their shutters permanently lowered are constantly increasing. With fewer local shops, there are fewer places for socializing on a human scale and everything goes grey, making the urban areas that suffer these closures less liveable and more unsafe, penalizing the elderly in particular. An ever-increasing audience of the Italian population which numbers more than 10 million over 70s. Not often having a car and no shops near their homes, shopping has become a big problem for many of them.
Forecasts for the next few months
Returning to the cost of living, the worst, fortunately, seems to be behind us. In 2024, in fact, inflation is expected to slow down and record an average growth of less than 2 percent. A result, the latter, in line with the levels expected also in the rest of Europe which should induce the European Central Bank to reduce interest rates. However, many doubts and uncertainties remain. Forecasts on the dear life just mentioned, in fact, could prove to be underestimated. If the crisis situations in the Middle East and Ukraine were to worsen further, the increase in inflation could remain well above the expected 2 percent.
Expenditure items
Analyzing the individual expenditure items in detail, the most important increases that occurred between 2021 and 2023 involved international flight tickets (+106.1 percent), electricity bills (+93.1 percent), national airline tickets (+65.4 percent), gas bills (+62.5 percent ), sugar (+61.7 percent), rice (+48.2 percent), olive oil (45.5 percent), preserved milk (+37.4 percent) and butter (+37 percent). On the other hand, the products which underwent a price reduction were devices for receiving images and sounds (televisions) (-28.6 percent), devices for mobile telephones (cell phones) (-12 percent), devices for sound (CD/DV players, stereos, amplifiers, radios, etc.) (-11.4 percent), pregnancy tests and contraceptives (-10.3 percent) and fiction books (-6.3 percent hundred).
2024-02-03 17:59:54
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