Govt moots natl anti-poverty campaign

(ANSA) - Rome, October 2 - The gap between rich and poor is growing, and the government is planning a nationwide plan to combat that trend, Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti told the House social affairs committee Thursday.
    "There is a will to launch a national anti-poverty campaign," Poletti told MPs.
    "An ever-widening sector of citizens is being impoverished, and a gap has opened between different sectors of Italian society," the minister said.
    Incoming data has shown "the situation has significantly worsened," Poletti said.
    The plan would include reducing bureaucracy that presently stands in the way of the jobless getting hired, and building what he called "tools for permanent action" beginning in Italy's poverty-ridden southern regions.