Chamber improves Brazil Aid, but insecurity persists

The approval by the Chamber of Deputies last Thursday (25th) of the proposal that creates the Auxílio Brasil, a social program that replaces Bolsa Família, gave more clarity to the original text sent by the Jair Bolsonaro government (no party), but the insecurity as the future of the benefit after the elections still persists, according to experts.

For economist Daniel Duque, from Ibre/FGV (Brazilian Institute of Economics, Fundação Getulio Vargas), the complementary benefits —such as school sports aid, junior scientific initiation scholarship and rural productive inclusion aid, for example— distorted the original objective program, by putting in a new orientation that takes the focus off poverty reduction.

“The text is better than what the government had proposed. There isn’t much to do with the design that the government has put in place. If the destiny was to fight poverty, it doesn’t make sense,” says Duque.

“It is a program created with weak fiscal bases and without a clear source of funds. It is a contracting of future indebtedness, and the promise of granting a benefit of R$ 400, subject to the approval of the PEC dos Precatórios, still plays the role of future governments.”

For the professor at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and vice president of the Brazilian Basic Income Network, Tatiana Roque, the new program tends to be a Bolsa Família with updated values ​​and a change of name for a simple electoral question.

“The R$ 400 promised by the government is a chimera, nobody knows how it will be and what the criteria will be. This puts families that depend on the program in a prolonged situation of insecurity.”

She adds that the big problem that arises is the helplessness in which families who depended on Emergency Aid during the pandemic must be left and will not be eligible for the new program.

“Many informal workers, the invisible ones of the minister [da Economia] Paulo Guedes, do not fit the new criteria and will continue in a precarious situation.”

Another problem pointed out is that the rapporteur’s preliminary text provided for the automatic correction of the benefit amount by the INPC (National Consumer Price Index). The government’s economic team, however, pressured the majority of deputies not to approve the item.

In the experts’ view, the lack of an automatic correction should keep the beneficiaries, who end up depending on a decision of the Executive, for new value updates.

“The program will be permanent, but it is already priced that 2022 will be a year of fiscal confusion. The ideal step would be the readjustment for inflation, which ended up not being approved, but even so the text of the Chamber is an advance in relation to what came from the government,” says Duque.

The economist also assesses that the way in which the new program was put in place by the government was confusing, since the replacement of Bolsa Família had been discussed more vigorously at least since last year.

This is not a government with a vocation to discuss social policy, says Duque. “With the pandemic, a gigantic social demand ended up appearing and fell into the lap of this government. When a problem like that is placed in the hands of a government without a vocation, the result ends up being worse than the order.”

“The future of the program after the 2022 election is worrying. If the current government, which took the decision to end Bolsa Família, is re-elected, it could end Auxílio Brasil as well, even as it is a program created on a more basic basis. fragile.”

Duque also assesses that, regardless of the president who is governing Brazil from 2023 onwards, Auxílio Brasil should be revised.

“We are living through a period of economic anomaly, due to the pandemic, and from the next government onwards, it will be necessary to understand whether Auxílio Brasil has improved or worsened the conditions of these families.”

The researcher considers, however, that the fact that the new program proposes to end the queues, which were a serious problem for Bolsa Família, is a great step forward.

The queue, of about 1.2 million registrations today, is due to the fact that Bolsa Família resources have become smaller than the demand to serve low-income registered users.

MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOLSA FAMÍLIA AND AUXÍLIO BRASIL

Average benefit amount

• Bolsa Família: R$190 (until October)
• Brazil Aid*: BRL 220 (November) and more than BRL 400 (as of December)*

Number of families served

• Bolsa Família: 14.7 million
• Brazil Aid*: 17 million

Access criteria (extreme poverty and poverty line)

• Bolsa Família: R$89 per family member (extreme poverty) and R$178 (poverty)
• Brazil Aid**: R$ 105 (extreme poverty) and R$ 210 (poverty)

Benefits (used to calculate the amount to be transferred to the family)

• Bolsa Família: there were four types (basic benefit; variable benefits; variable benefit linked to the adolescent and benefit to overcome extreme poverty)
• Brazil Aid: there are nine types (early childhood benefit; family composition benefit; benefit to overcome extreme poverty; school sports aid; junior scientific initiation grant; child citizen aid; rural productive inclusion aid; urban productive inclusion aid; transition compensatory benefit )

*Government plan from December and depends on the approval of the PEC dos Precatório

**Levels approved by the Chamber and depend on a vote by the MP in the Senate

Source: Ministry of Citizenship