The loss of income affected the poor and the rich in 2021, but it was more intense for Brazilians with less financial conditions, according to a survey released this Friday (10) by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
According to the survey, which goes beyond the job market and also analyzes other sources of funds, including social programs, the 5% of the population with the lowest income had a 33.9% drop in average income from 2020 to 2021.
The drop is the most intense among 13 classes surveyed by the IBGE. All of them suffered setbacks in the comparison of the last two years, signals the institute.
From 2020 to 2021, the poorest 5% saw the average household income per capita fall from R$59 to R$39 per month. The 33.9% drop comes from this comparison.
Household income per capita corresponds to the total gain divided by the number of people in each household.
The second most intense loss was felt by the layer that involves Brazilians with the second lowest average income. This is the class of the population with 5% to 10% lower income.
In this range, income plummeted 31.8%, from R$217 to R$148, from 2020 to 2021.
At the other end of the list, the richest 1% registered a loss of 6.4%. The average per capita income of this group fell from R$17,000 to R$15,900 last year.
Inflation spreads drops
The data are part of the Continuous Pnad: Income from All Sources 2021. In addition to gains from work and social programs, the study also analyzes sources of income such as retirements, pensions and rents.
Researcher Alessandra Brito, from IBGE, says that high inflation was responsible for causing widespread losses among Brazilians last year, since the study’s calculations take into account the increase in prices.
According to Brito, what generated the most intense declines among the most vulnerable was the reduction or end of aid programs and transfers.
Among them is emergency aid, created in 2020, the initial year of the pandemic. The measure ended in 2021.
What prevented even more intense losses, ponders the researcher, was the resumption of the job market, even if this movement was insufficient in the face of the crisis.
“The job market has returned, more informal workers have returned, but income from other sources played an important role in 2020, especially aid, to retain people who earn less”, he says.
“As there were changes in the aid, this mattress, which held the bar in 2020, began to be taken off throughout 2021. It greatly affected this population [mais carente]”, complete.
In comparison with 2012, the initial year of the IBGE’s historical series, the average per capita income of the poorest 5% dropped by 48% in 2021. In other words, it fell by almost half, from R$75 to R$39. the most intense of the research.
At the other end, the 1% of the population with the highest income recorded a loss of 6.9% in the same period. The income of the richest stratum increased from R$17,100 in 2012 to R$15,900 in 2021.
The richest 1% receive 38.4 times more than half the population
According to the IBGE, people who were part of the richest 1% received, on average, last year, 38.4 times the income of half of the population with the lowest incomes, whose average was R$ 415.
This difference showed a downward trend from 2012 (38.2 times) to 2014 (33.5 times). Then, it grew again, reaching the peak of the historical series in 2019 (39.8 times), in the pre-pandemic period.
At the beginning of the health crisis, in 2020, the ratio decreased to 34.8 times, as a result of changes in the composition of household income, which had an increase in other sources of income, such as emergency aid.
With the end of these measures, and the incomplete recovery of the labor market, the disparity rose again.
From 2020 to 2021, the percentage of households with beneficiaries of other social programs, a category that includes emergency aid, dropped from 23.7% to 15.4%, says the IBGE.
Meanwhile, the proportion of households with Bolsa FamÃlia beneficiaries increased from 7.2% to 8.6%.
The Pnad ContÃnua with a quarterly cut, also published by the IBGE, focuses on the labor market. The annual study, the most recent edition of which was presented this Friday, has a broader look at other sources of income.
Folha’s recent survey, from microdata from the quarterly Pnad ContÃnua, showed that Brazilians with the highest salaries had a greater individual loss if only the average income from work since the beginning of the pandemic is considered.
This group, however, manages to protect itself from other forms of the crisis, analysts say. The loss can be mitigated or compensated, for example, with financial investments.
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