5.2 SOCIAL ISSUES 119 A person living in Italy with less than 500 / 630 / 800 per month is considered poor. Labour force is a term used to refer to workers collectively when they are considered as a social class or a political force. ONLINE RESOURCES Social inclusion and income support measures Wage guarantee funds and solidarity contracts POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT, AND HOMELESSNESS Poverty line and absolute poverty The poverty line , which is also sometimes called the poverty threshold, is the smallest amount of money a person or a family needs to live on and to buy what is needed. Below this line, people are classed as living in absolute poverty, i.e. when a person does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet basic living standards over an extended period of time. According to data from ISTAT and Banco Alimentare, in Italy in 2024: 9.7% of the total resident individuals were in absolute poverty; Italy s average poor person was unemployed, from the south of the country, with a diploma, and a large family; at least 10.3% of couples with three or more children lived below the food poverty line. In 2023, in the UK, 18% of the population were in absolute poverty while 21% of the EU population were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. to fire: licenziare income: reddito rate: tasso shelter: rifugio threshold: soglia 244 Unemployment The main cause for poverty is unemployment. The official unemployment rate for a nation is the number of unemployed people, i.e. people who are jobless, but who are actively seeking work and available to start a job. It is a percentage of the labour force , which is the sum of the employed and unemployed. According to 2024 statistics, in Italy the unemployment rate was 6%, i.e. quite high. This was probably due to Italian inflexible labour market policy, where workers have high employment protection and are unlikely to be fired, thus creating difficult conditions for young people seeking jobs. As for the UK, the unemployment rate was 4.3%, while in Europe about 6%. Homelessness A long period of unemployment may lead to homelessness. Families and individuals experience homelessness in different ways and for different reasons. The homeless living on city streets are the most visible, however, many live with family, friends, in a vehicle, or in night shelters; others in temporary housing offered by some churches or religious groups, and some women and children escaping abuse live in women s shelters. In Italy, homeless people mainly live in big cities and in the north of the country and the majority of them are male (74%), migrants (67%), living alone (45%). All around the UK, homelessness is on the rise: in 2024 about 360,00 households contacted their local authority for support after being threatened with homelessness or losing their home, with an increase of 10% in a year. In Europe there were over one million homeless people in 2023 (of these, over 400,000 were children), the most part being in Germany and in France.