Lula’s campaign launches offensive and promises additional R$ 150 per child up to 6 years of age in Bolsa Família

The campaign of ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) announced, in an offensive on social networks, that the PT intends to pay an additional installment of R$ 150 per child up to six years old, beneficiary of Auxílio Brasil – who would return to call Bolsa Família.

The amount would be added to the floor of R$ 600, which Lula has already said he intends to maintain. Today, the permanent benefit of the program is at least R$ 400, and the other R$ 200 is valid until the end of this year.

In July, around 8.8 million children between zero and six years old were reached by the cash transfer program. With the inclusion of new families in August, this number should exceed 9 million — the target audience of the new installment promised by Lula.

The plan was announced on the Lulaverso page on Twitter and confirmed by members of the campaign.

Lulaverso, which brings together channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, was created by Lula’s communication in an attempt to gain space on the networks. The profiles are managed by the PT campaign.

In a succession of publications this Sunday (28), the page announced six proposals that will appear in the PT government program, one of them the increase in the social program, cited by the name that was engraved as a mark of PT administrations.

“Lulinha will guarantee the Bolsa Família of R$600 with an additional R$150 per child up to 6 years old”, says the text.

The message also announces the program aimed at renegotiating the population’s debts, called “Desenrola Brasil”, as shown by the Sheet.

Lulaverso’s profile on Twitter has 33,900 followers — far less than the 4.1 million on Lula’s official profile, where the publication about the additional for children did not appear.

Posts on this channel are often shared on other platforms as well.

The payment of a benefit per child seeks to solve a problem identified by economists who advise Lula: the inequality of treatment among beneficiaries of the income transfer program.

The setting of the minimum amount per family, approved by the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL), occurs regardless of the number of members or the degree of poverty, which contributes to creating distortions. Families with more children, for example, end up receiving a lower amount per person than what is paid to beneficiaries without children.

Within the PT campaign, there is an assessment that it will be necessary to change the design of the program to fix this type of problem.

Outside researchers also share this diagnosis. In recent months, experts have drawn attention to the fact that the establishment of a floor per family has contributed to eroding the solidity of the Cadastro Único, a database created in 2001 and which has become a reference for identifying who and where Brazilians are in of poverty and extreme poverty.

The offer of a minimum amount per family encouraged the division of registrations in the expectation of receiving the benefit in double, which is called a “survival strategy” by specialists in the subject.

Between November 2021 and April 2022, the number of single-member families receiving Auxílio Brasil jumped from 2.2 million to 3.7 million, a growth of 66.3% in a few months. The registration of families with six members or more has been falling over time.

According to members of Lula’s campaign, the new design of Bolsa Família should also promote greater integration with qualification programs for people of working age, aimed at generating income through work or opening new businesses.

Some of the measures under discussion in the campaign have already started to be brushed off by Lula in his TV appearances, such as the debt renegotiation program, quoted in a Saturday afternoon in Jornal Nacional. Other measures, however, will still be detailed by PT.