Is italy a poor country?

Question

I heard the country is poor,no doubt they have beautiful sructures.
true?

Answer 1

Italy is by no stretch of the imagination poor. Relative to most of the world, Italy is in fact wealthy.

One of the best measures for relative wealth is GDP / Capita. This measure is the economic output of the country (GDP) divided by the country's population. Italy's GDP is $28,534. This means, that on average, Italy makes $28K / year for every man woman and child. For example, a family of four, in theory, will have over $100K in income. There is of course a major limitation to this metric - see below, but this measure strongly correlates to the overall economic welfare of a country and its citizens. This is a link to the rankings of GDP / capita.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

Italy's ranking places them between France and Singapore. When you think of the poverty stricken nations of the world, these two countries do not come to mind.

The one weakness of the measure is that wealth is not evenly distributed. There may be 1% of the population that receives 99% of the income. In this extreme case, most of the country would be poor with a few fabulously wealthy individuals. In my own case I live in the US which has a GDP / Capita of 41,000 or so. That means my family of four if we are average would be brining in 164,000 a year - I am in the upper middle class and I am not particularly close to that figure. In fact, the median household income in the US is "only" $42,000 or so (if memory serves). This provides some evidence of disparity in wealth in the United States. In fact, although the US ranks 3rd in per capita income, it is lower than Thailand - which ranks at only #69 in GDP/capita - in the percentage of people below the poverty line (US is 12% below poverty, Thailand only 10%.) Poverty defined as the minimum income to pay for minimal housing, clothing and food requirements.

Unfortunately poverty data on Italy is not readily available. However Western Europe as a region does quite well in this particular metric, and Italy on most economic metrics is typical of Western Europe standards.

Italy was once a poor country, but post WWII has caught up with Western standards and has one of the most dynamic economies in Western Europe at this time. So the answer is a big NO - Italy is not a poor country.

Answer 2

My family is from the north, in the mountains between Genova and Milano. I have visited them many time and though in Chicago I have more material things they do not have they are more comfortable without them. Everyone has cell phones and a car. When I visit Italy I like to go to the small villages, it is not that they are poor it is more that they are not as concerned with money like the Americans. I have seen some very depressed areas in Illinois because industry has pulled out of the area. Many of the young people are leaving Italy for countries that have more higher paying jobs. That is how I ended up in America. So your question is is Italy poor, I say no they are rich with pride.

Answer 3

Wow!!! The ignorance of some posters on here is baffeling.

Anyway, to answer your question; No.

Italy is far from poor. Actually it is quite rich and also advanced. In many cases, it is more advanced than the US such as electronics (about 2 years ahead).
Italy has a diversified industrial economy with roughly the same total and per capita output as France and the UK with a GDP of $1.71 trillion. That is far from poor and quite good when you consider that this comes from a population of only 58 million people.

Answer 4

If Italy Is A Poor Country, then its the world's only poor country that is home to the most classiest car manufacturers like the Lamborgini's, Ferrari's & Of Course The Maserati's.

Answer 5

Nicolina, What you are describing is rather unreal... I'm Italian, live here, although in the North, and I've never seen anything even remotely similar to what you are describing. I admit there are areas, especially in the South, that are not so well off as here. Your family must be one of the poorest ones in Italy. But then again, there are poor people in every country, even in first world countries. Thank God, they are not the majority.

Answer 6

NO IT IS NOT.

If poor refers to poverty then it is understood in many senses. The main understandings of the term include:

•Descriptions of material need, typically including the necessities of daily living, like (food, clothing, and shelter). Poverty in this sense may be understood as the deprivation of essential goods and services.
•Describing a lack of sufficient income and wealth. The meaning of "sufficient" varies widely across the different political and economic parts of the world.
•Descriptions of social need, such as social exclusion, dependency, and the ability to participate in society. This would include education and information. Social exclusion is usually distinguished from poverty, as it encompasses political and moral issues, and is not restrained to the sphere of economics.

If poor country means a third world country then the term is frequently used to denote nations with a low Human Development Index (HDI), independent of their political status. Terms such as Global South, less wealthy nations, developing countries, least developed countries and the Majority World have become more popular in circles where the term "third world" is regarded to have derogatory or out-of-date connotations. Development workers also call them the two-thirds world (because two-thirds of the world is underdeveloped) and The South.

Italy is a highly-developed country with the 7th-highest GDP and the 17th-highest Human Development Index rating. It is a member of the G8 and a founding member of what is now the European Union, having signed the in 1957.

A developed country is a term used to categorise countries with developed economies, ones in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors of industry dominate. This level of economic development usually translates into a high income per capita, and a high Human Development Index (HDI). Countries with high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita often fit the previous description of a developed economy; however, anomalies exist when determining "developed" status by the factor GDP/cap alone.

Organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), generally agree that the group of developed countries includes the following countries from Europe (in alphabetical order):
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Faroe Islands (Denmark), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland and Italy.

Of course, the equitable division of wealth among different segments of the country is altogether a different matter !!!

Answer 7

It depends on how you look at it. Vatican City which is the headquarters of one of the richest religions in the world would make Italy quite wealthy, but the power structure of the Catholic church is such that they would rather sit on their wealth than use it which is why they made Vatican City a separate entity on paper in the first place.

Then of course you have organized crime. If you believe some historic accounts, it was a common practice to hide money made illegally in other countries by sending it home to Italy. If that's the case, the money is there it's just hidden or only the wealthiest have access to it.

And then there is always wine, olive oil and Sophia Loren. Can any country truly be said to be impoverished that holds those treasures?

Answer 8

In Italy the cost of residing will strengthen and we ought to continually deal with wages and taxes. maximum folk are unable to achieve later this month. extra people for move on vacation they ought to open a loan, do a touch you. Then we ought to confirm from individual to individual, the following comes into play the component "social classification" yet to boot the very incontrovertible fact that sales cave in and many agencies close at the instantaneous are not a sturdy signal of monetary prosperity, can not discover? this isn't to assert that we are undesirable, in spite of the indisputable fact that the disaster there and feels. Sorry for my english.

Answer 9

I know, I know, Italians have tan skin and are catholics, so they can't be as rich as countries like Germany and England, right? In your USA, mentality, right? Well, sorry to burst your bubble but Italy has exactly the same GDP per capita as those countries.

Answer 10

Italy is member of Group of Seven (G7).
Group of Seven, seven industrialized nations of the world (United States of America, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom).