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SALERNO, ITALY - 11 MAY 2020: A worker lifts cases of bean cans at the Banco Alimentare, a food bank in Salerno, Italy, on May 11th 2020.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, Banco Alimentare distributed food to around 1.5 million people, a number that has gone up by roughly 40% in just over two month. The food bank can’t keep up with the new requests, particularly in Italy’s traditionally poorer southern regions such as Campania, of which Naples is the capital. The food, a mix of donations and purchases made with EU funds, is distributed through local charities that prepare shopping baskets and ready-to-eat meals for those in need.
The coronavirus pandemic has precipitated one of the worst economic downturns in generations across the world. But few major economies are likely to suffer as much as Italy’s, or take longer to recover.
The health emergency has already left hundreds of thousands of Italians unable to pay for their own food for the first time. Experts warn that the poverty crisis is only just beginning, and that many of those who abruptly plunged into poverty may never be able to lift themselves out of it – even once the pandemic is over. Italy, more than its Western European neighbors, is ill-prepared to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Its big problem is that its economy never really recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, leaving families poorer and the government much more indebted today than it was then.
CREDIT: Gianni Cipriano for The Wall Street Journal
SLUG: ITPOOR
The coronavirus pandemic has precipitated one of the worst economic downturns in generations across the world. But few major economies are likely to suffer as much as Italy’s, or take longer to recover.
The health emergency has already left hundreds of thousands of Italians unable to pay for their own food for the first time. Experts warn that the poverty crisis is only just beginning, and that many of those who abruptly plunged into poverty may never be able to lift
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