The Bank of Italy on Monday released figures supporting claims by unions that salaried workers have been among the economy's biggest losers in recent years.
In a nationwide study of family finances, the central bank found that incomes had hardly changed at all between 2000 and 2006 in households where the main breadwinner was an employee on company books.
Putting the total gain over the six-year period at a meagre 0.3%, the Bank admitted that between 2004 and 2006 incomes had started to climb again, moving up by 4.3% in real terms.
But ''this only partly compensates the reduction seen between 2000 and 2004,'' the report stressed, adding that overall incomes have ''stayed substantially stable'' since the turn of the century.
The self-employed, including artisans and the heads of family businesses, did better over the six years studied, said the central bank, estimating that family incomes had risen by 13.1%.
The Bank of Italy's figures produced a flurry of reactions from unions and groups who hailed them as definitive confirmation of what they had already said many times.
''They demonstrate the reasons for union demands that taxes on salaries and pensions be cut, said Antonio Focillo of the UIL union confederation.
Coldiretti, a farmers' union, said that the shrinking value of many Italian families' incomes meant that often buying food constituted the biggest household expense after the mortgage or rent was paid.
Coldiretti said that for two families out of three the biggest worries at the start of 2008 were the rising cost of food and fuel.
Consumer association Codacons went so far as to accuse the Bank of Italy of being ''excessively optimistic'' in its declaration that real incomes for salaried workers had been stuck since 2000.
But it hailed what it called further proof that, while autonomous workers had been able to raise their prices in line with inflation, ordinary employees had not.
The Bank of Italy study said the average combined monthly income of an Italian family in 2006 was 2,649 euros, up 2.% in real terms from the 2004 figure.
