The percentage of Brazilians living in extreme poverty in 2020 was the lowest ever recorded in the World Bank’s historical series, which began in 1981.
In the year in which the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the country and the implementation of emergency aid of R$ 600 in response, the percentage of Brazilians living on less than US$ 2.15 a day — a new criterion adopted by the institution in September to delimit the income range, replacing the US$ 1.90 previously used—it dropped to 1.95%.
In 2019, before the impact of the virus, this percentage was 5.39%.
The share of Brazilians in extreme poverty had been on an upward trajectory since 2014, when the country Brazil entered a recession. Before that, there was a long downward trajectory of this percentage, since 2003.
The World Bank’s historical series record was recorded in 1981. In that year, 30.6% of Brazilians lived in extreme poverty (considering 2017 prices).
The effect of emergency aid on poverty in Brazil had already been pointed out by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) in a study released in 2021. Without the benefit, the proportion of Brazilians in extreme poverty would reach 12.9% in 2020, according to the institute (considering the parameter adopted at the time by the World Bank, of US$ 1.90 per day).
The percentage corresponds to about 27.3 million Brazilians.
With the impact of social programs, however, this rate dropped to 5.7% in the initial year of the pandemic – the result is equivalent to about 12 million people in the country. The percentage was the lowest recorded since 2015 (5.1%). The IBGE series gathers data from 2012.
By reaching especially the most vulnerable, social programs also temporarily reduced inequality, signals the IBGE.
The Gini index, which measures the disparity between the gains of the poor and the rich, dropped in 2020 to 0.524, the same level as in 2015 and the lowest in the series started in 2012.
In a scenario without income transfers, the indicator would have reached 0.573, the highest value in the series, according to the IBGE.
The Gini index ranges from zero to one. The closer the result is to zero, the smaller the inequality.
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