The Jair Bolsonaro government (PL) announced this Tuesday (4) that it will eliminate the Auxílio Brasil queue, with the inclusion of about 500,000 families in the income transfer program by the end of October. The new beneficiaries will be covered before the 30th, when the second round of the presidential elections takes place. Second, the president seeks re-election.
With the measure, 21.13 million families – of which 17.2 million are headed by women – will receive the benefit of R$ 600 this month. In September, 20.65 million families were covered by the program.
The measure is another one that seeks to gain ground in the final stretch of the election. First placed in Sunday’s vote (2), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) has a wide advantage over Bolsonaro in the low-income electorate.
The inclusion was announced during an interview given to journalists by Caixa’s president, Daniella Marques, and minister Ronaldo Bento (Citizenship). He denied electoral bias in the measure.
On Monday (3), the Bolsonaro government had already announced the anticipation of the Auxílio Brasil payment calendar for the month of October. With the change, payment, via Caixa Econômica Federal, starts on the 11th and ends on the 25th — before the second shift. The original calendar provided for payments between October 18 and 31, the day after the vote.
Keeping the Auxílio Brasil queue at zero was made possible after Congress approved, in July, a PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of interest to the government that ran over laws that deal with elections and public accounts to boost benefits amid the presidential race. Since then, there has been a net entry of families into the program.
Until then, families seeking to register for the program had been facing queues.
In addition to providing for an increase from R$ 400 to R$ 600, the proposal released funds to expand the public, doubled the value of the gas voucher and created an aid for truck drivers and also for taxi drivers, among other measures.
This Tuesday, Bolsonaro also promised to pay a 13th installment of Auxílio Brasil to families headed by women, a strategy of the president to improve his electoral performance. The female electorate has a high rate of rejection of the president.
“It’s already agreed, just for women, there are 17 million, starting next year”, he said. The Chief Executive stated that he cannot start paying the 13th this year because of the electoral legislation.
“It’s not even possible because it’s an election year, you can’t deal with this issue now, it’s prohibited by the electoral law. Starting next year, the thirteenth year for Auxílio Brasil”, he said.
With the measures, the government tries to boost the campaign for the reelection of the president. In the first round, Bolsonaro accounted for 43.2% of the votes, against 48.43% for Lula. The difference between the current president and the PT was just over 6 million votes.
“The political variable never entered the Auxílio Brasil equation,” said the Minister of Citizenship. “We saw the need to make these changes in a structural way in the income transfer program, precisely because we identified these dysfunctions. We could not sit idly by, knowing what to do and how to do it, limited by the electoral period.”
“Those who are hungry and those who need social protection cannot wait,” he added.
This month, 5.9 million families will also receive the R$112 boosted gas voucher, an increase of 200,000 families compared to August, when the first installment of R$110 of the bimonthly benefit was paid.
According to the minister, 100% of the vulnerable population is being assisted by the government. “We don’t have any family regularly registered in CadÚnico [Cadastro Único] claiming Auxílio Brasil, meeting the conditions, outside this network of shelter and protection”, he said.
Auxílio Brasil payroll loan starts to be offered this month
On Tuesday (4), it was also announced that Caixa plans to start offering the payroll loan to Auxílio Brasil beneficiaries from the second half of October, that is, before the second round of elections.
According to the president of Caixa, Daniella Marques, the bank will operate with an interest rate below the ceiling of 3.5% per month, set by the Ministry of Citizenship in an ordinance released at the end of September.
“We will certainly operate below this ceiling, a little below, still to be defined by the bank’s risk area,” he said.
The value of the Auxílio Brasil consignment is limited to 40% of the permanent transfer of BRL 400 of the benefit, that is, the maximum discount will be BRL 160 per month. According to simulations by Anefac (National Association of Finance, Administration and Accounting Executives), the amount to be borrowed is limited to R$ 2,569.34.
The ministry also established that the payroll loan to Auxílio Brasil beneficiaries can be made in up to two years, in 24 successive monthly installments, and the amount will be released within two business days after the credit is approved.
The payroll loan is a type of loan in which the contracting parties have their debts deducted directly at source — in this case, in the payment of installments of Auxílio Brasil.
According to the Minister of Citizenship, 60 financial institutions are in the qualification phase after showing interest in granting the Auxílio Brasil payroll loan.
Several institutions, such as Itaú Unibanco, C6, BMG, Bradesco and Santander, in addition to financial BV, have already stated that they will not offer this line of credit. Specialists consider the loan modality risky for beneficiaries of Auxílio Brasil, a population whose income is already committed to essential expenses.
The Caixa president says she has talked to other banks and, according to her, understands that the problem is knowing how to operate with the very low-income public. “Caixa has a deep understanding of low-income people and is comfortable with consciously granting payroll-deductible loans.”
Marques points out that Caixa does not want to encourage household indebtedness and that customers who have loans with higher interest rates will be able to hire payroll loans and use the amount to pay off these debts.
“We are going to enter with a very great awareness for people to exchange a more expensive debt for a cheaper one, to replace debt and to support entrepreneurship”, he said.
According to Caixa’s president, internal surveys carried out by the bank showed that 70% of Auxílio Brasil beneficiaries are informal workers or have some autonomous activity, so the payroll loan would also be used for investment in their own business.
See examples comparing loans
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