Abstract

A form of Basic Income - called Reddito di Cittadinanza - was introduced in Campania in 2004 and suddendly suspended in 2010 by the regional government, because of its presumed lack of sustainability. In this paper, that experience - from a region considered one of the most demanding for its economic, social and legal conditions - is examined. Data from the lists of the beneficiaries, interviews to a selected regional sample of them and to the street level bureaucrats implementing Reddito di Cittadinanza in the Campania districts were collected and quantitative and qualitative analyses (Esa) conducted. The results show the centrality of the treatment of so-called «zero-income» families in the targeting of poverty, the heterogeneous sociological content of poverty in the various regional districts and the necessity to contextualize the design of a new Basic Income intervention within Territorial Plans to contrast the social mechanisms reproducing poverty at the local level.