News Briefs
Young people in Italy have housing woes, too
Oct 18, 2007 6:03 PM
It’s not just young New Yorkers who can’t find affordable housing. In Italy, the housing crunch is so bad that one third of Italian men still live with their mothers. That’s why Italy’s economics minister proposed a tax break to lure them away from home. He’s offering $1,411 in tax breaks for young Italian men who rent in a bid to “send those we call bamboccioni (‘big babies’) out of the house,” the minister told a Senate hearing on the 2008 draft budget. His comments caught flack from politicians of both the right and the left, who say the young men cannot be blamed for a stagnant economy, soaring rents or “a precarious situation afflicting an entire generation.” One union leader remarked that the sharp rise in Italy’s cost of living meant that the tax break would not be enough to help young Italians stand on their own two feet.
And why is the tax break only for men?
Reuters, Oct. 8
