Human currents blow inside a city that continues to crack amidst social cracks that open up as the struggle to live and survive grows. Poverty is no longer only that of souls in pain, of the last ones who fill the most remote social outskirts of Cosenza with their footprints. The hardship, now, is made up of colonies of human beings who struggle to manage the sustainability of family spending. And it happens more and more often, everywhere. The limit of domestic spending capacity is seriously compromised by inflation reported to be slowing down, but only apparently. The cooling of electricity and gas prices has given the illusion of a faded growth but, in reality, the shopping cart continues to grow heavier in the family economy. And for many it becomes a problem to fill it. The National Consumer Union has processed the November data from Istat and estimates the annual outlay for family spending in Cosenza (29th in Italy) at 205 euros more. There was, therefore, no convergence towards the objective of alleviating suffering.
The consumer complaint Mauro Antonelli, head of the Research Office of the National Consumer Union, warns families, explaining the great deception of algebra in the description of trend inflation: «The decline in annual inflation is only an optical illusion which it reverberates through mathematics and the fact that in November 2023 the peak of 11.8% was reached, a record rise that had not been seen since March 1984. In short, it is just a mirage. Also because the inflation figure for November 2023 is still a positive value. This means it represents a further increase on the record figure from a year ago. If a kilo of pasta cost 1.79 euros and today costs 1.80, that extra cent ends up increasing the spending difficulties in a given family. The slowdown in inflation is an effect of the policy of reducing energy prices and, only in part, of interest rates. Therefore, the tools put in place by the government have nothing to do with it.”
