Wages at a standstill, prices up: wages up 7%, olive oil up 42%

Pesaro, May 11, 2025 – Salari at the stake and the cost of living skyrocketing. Even in our province there is a sharp increase in families who, despite having two workers at home, due to increasingly precarious contracts and salaries that are too low, struggle to make ends meet and make it to the end of the month.

A problem also underlined by the Head of State , Sergio Mattarella, on the occasion of the May 1st celebration, who spoke of "inadequate salaries, so much so that many families can no longer cope with the increase in the cost of living". Some call them "new poor", because they are people who have a job, perhaps even a stable one, but who, despite working, cannot even meet basic expenses.

A tangible problem among the families of Pesaro and also demonstrated by the data regarding wages, published by Ires Cgil delle Marche, relating to our province. Considering workers in the private sector, according to the union's research office, the average gross annual wage in Pesaro and Urbino in 2019 was 20,121 euros.

The latest available data concerns 2023, when the average gross salary was 21,627 euros. In five years, the percentage increase in salaries was approximately 7%. It should be considered that within this category, there are both full-time and permanent workers, who have higher average salaries (in 2023 the average gross annual salary was 30,070 euros), up to part-time and seasonal workers, who instead have much lower salaries (for part-time workers, for example, the average gross salary was 12,808 euros).

However, considering the annual average of 21,627 euros, we can therefore talk about a monthly salary (for thirteen months) of about 1,300 euros per month. But if we look at another data, provided by Istat, relating to the increase in food prices, always considering the five years between 2019 and 2023, we see that the percentages of increase are quite different.

According to the statistics institute, from 2019 to 2023 the cost of sugar increased by 64.8%, that of rice by 50% and that of olive oil by 42.3%. Not only that, in the same period the cost of pasta increased by 40.1%, that of milk by 21.9%.

These are primary goods that represent more than a fifth of the Istat basket and have recorded increases of over 20% in five years. Added to this are also the increases in water, electricity and gas bills, which have also weighed heavily on families in our area. In this regard, Federconsumatori Pesaro and Urbino is calling for the creation of "a Fund to combat energy poverty". However, in 2023, on average in Italy, consumer prices recorded a growth of 5.7%. A figure that translates into an increase in spending for families of around 1,800 euros per year, with the same consumption.