How much is a poor man?

In 2006, in the boondocks of Piauí had the misfortune to ask the teenage son of a beneficiary of Bolsa Familia (benefit from government to miserable) how many times per week they could eat some protein. "I do not know what it is," came the reply.

"Meat. You eat meat?" And he said: "Occasionally we hit a bird.

The greatest promise of Rousseff as president is to eradicate poverty. On purpose or not, she used the term "misery" to do so.

Experts in the subject itself and MDS (Ministry of Social Development), responsible for the Bolsa Familia, use the terms "poor" and "indigent."

Thus, it is poor and the Family Grant eligible family groups with per capita monthly income less than R$ 140. If a family of four living on R$ 400 it is poor (need R$ 560 or more to make this assessment).

Already the poor are those with per capita monthly income below R $ 70.

The values are ridiculous. Equivalent to R$ 4.60 per day (one pack of Malrboro for the poor) and R$ 2.30 (less than a bus ticket for the indigent in SP).

MDS recognizes that the ideal would be to use minimum wage as a reference. Thus, a family of four would cease to be poor when I received (via earnings and / or social benefits) R $ 2,040.00, or R$ $510 per head.

The goal of Dilma with the current definition of poverty (below U.S. R$ 140) is feasible and not cost much.

View more honest, however, would be nothing sensational. Would become "former" poor "who spend more than with the R $ 4.60 or more a day.

According to calculations by the Center for Social Policies at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil would have to invest an additional R$ 21.3 billion a year (up from R$ .4 billion of Bolsa Familia) to achieve this goal.

Altogether, almost R$ 35 billion would amount to only 1% of GDP and rising to over 80 million people.

As a comparison, in the first eight months of 2010 the government broke up R$ 50 billion to pay interest on its debt. Proportionally, those who received interest on that R$ 50 billion is a grain of Brazilians in front of a sea of poor countrymen.


Leo Caldas / Folhapress


Flavio de Mesquita The fisherman with a wife and children in Porto de Pedras (AL), one of the poorest in the country, beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia, still hungry.



Flavio de Mesquita The fisherman with a wife and children in Porto de Pedras (AL), one of the poorest in the country

The table below shows the total number of poor and destitute in Brazil fell by half over the past ten years. And still shows where they are concentrated.

Since 2003, over two thirds (71%) reduction of poor was because the labor market improved. There were almost 14 million new formal jobs in Lula.

By 2008, one for each point of GDP growth, occupancy also rose 1 point. Today, that proportion dropped to almost half, since there were productivity gains (the same number of workers began to produce more).

Thus, it is expected that the government Dilma invest more public money in the social area if you really want to eradicate poverty.

Another issue, not trivial, it is Dilma be content with the current criterion, equivalent to Malrboro and the passage of buses per day.

That should tell us who is Dilma. And your conscience.

1,00 USD worth R$ today 1,72

1,00 € worth R$ today 2,32

Bolsa Família

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Bolsa Família, roughly translated as "Family Stipend" or "Family Grant" or more precisely as "Family Allowance" in English, is a part of the Brazilian governmental welfare program Fome Zero (Zero Hunger). Bolsa Família provides financial aid to poor and indigent Brazilian families on condition that their children attend school and are vaccinated. The program attempts to both reduce short-term poverty by direct cash transfers and fight long-term poverty by increasing human capital among the poor through conditional cash transfers.^[1]

The Economist described Bolsa Família as an "anti-poverty scheme invented in Latin America" (which) "is winning converts worldwide."^[2]

The program is a centerpiece of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's social policy, and is reputed to have played a role in his victory in the Brazilian presidential election, 2006.^[3] Bolsa Familia is currently the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world, though the Mexican program Oportunidades was the first nation-wide program of this kind.^[4]

The Bolsa Familia program has been mentioned as one factor contributing to the reduction of poverty in Brazil, which fell 27.7% during Lula's first term in government.^[5] Recently the Center of Political Studies of the Getulio Vargas Foundation has published a study showing that there was a sharp reduction in the number of people in poverty in Brazil between 2003 and 2005.^[6] Other factors include an improvement in the job market and real gains on the minimum wage.^[5]

About 12 million Brazilian families receive funds from Bolsa Família,^[7] which has been described as "the largest programme of its kind in the world."^[7]

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