The Covid crisis increases the gap between Italian families who can save and are putting more and more money aside and those who have suffered damage and are now afraid of not being able to endure a new lockdown.
The traditional Acri-Ipsos research, on the occasion of the Day of Savings, highlights the contradictions of an unprecedented situation for our country where
consumption is weakening both due to forced closures and fears and liquidity is not invested but parked on deposits
, to use it in case of need.
"There is a great polarization among Italians" and "this
increase in savings
does not increase investments and
is not an engine of development
", summarizes the president of Acri Francesco Profumo who presents the research to the governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco, to the minister of the economy Roberto Gualtieri and to the president Abi Antonio Patuelli.
And so the percentage of Italians who identify with those who save without too many sacrifices (58%) and who look with satisfaction at the last 12 months, a period during which their reserve provision has increased.
But the other side of the coin is that in 2020 27% of the sample against 23% of the previous year said they had been hit (13% in a serious way such as job loss or lack of salary) .
And 30% of the survey states that the "personal / family economic situation does not allow to face a new lockdown".
A figure, however, detected before the new dpcm and which could rise in the coming days, as admitted by the president of Ipsos Nando Pagnoncelli, who however invites us not to look at the situation taking into account "a minority, albeit significant" of the "unprotected" categories which was hit by the crisis and now takes to the streets.
Apart from the more or less updated surveys of Ipsos, it will be seen in the coming months, from the official Istat and Bank of Italy data, how much wealth was actually damaged by the Covid crisis and what was the loss not only for self-employed, traders or SMEs directly affected but also for those who receive a fixed salary from companies in crisis.
"A significant share of Italians, albeit a minority,
is rapidly reducing their ability to resist difficulties, while others are improving it
", the research notes.
A positive note from the research comes, as Profumo notes: the change of pace of the EU with the launch of the Recovery Fund has swept away the populist winds.
Italians' confidence in the EU and the Euro has skyrocketed.
Satisfaction for the single currency has grown by 11 points in 5 years (from 2014 when it was 26% to 2019 when it reached 37%), and increased by 9 points in one year, reaching 46% in 2020. .
As a result, more than two thirds of Italians (68%) fully embrace the idea that Italy's exit from the European Union would be an unforgivable mistake and 57% believe that, in a 20-year perspective, it is better to be in the Euro rather than having their own national currency, preferred by only 27%.
