Lula’s promise, extra benefit for children from Bolsa Família should be delayed

The invoice with the Bolsa Família program in 2023 may be below R$ 175 billion projected by the team of the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), in the face of an expected delay in the implementation of the extra benefit of R$ 150 per child up to six years.

Despite efforts to get the proposal off the ground as soon as possible, PT allies admit that the amount will only begin to be paid months after Lula takes over the Planalto Palace.

Some members of the transition team believe that this should not happen in the first half. In this scenario, not all of the BRL 18 billion expected for this part of Bolsa Família would be used next year.

Effective spending on Bolsa Família is a sensitive point, since the program will be outside the spending ceiling if Lula’s team is successful in approving the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) for the Transition.

The proposal intends to free up space in the Budget for the president-elect to fulfill campaign promises, including maintaining the minimum value of R$600 for families covered by the social program and the implementation of the extra benefit of R$150.

The estimate of BRL 18 billion to cover the additional portion for children was made by members of the transition considering an expectation of payments throughout the year to about 9 million children between zero and six years old reached by the program – and who would be the public target of the new installment promised by Lula.

According to people who work in the social area of ​​the transition, however, the proposal to create this extra benefit still needs to be designed and then validated by the new government and forwarded to Congress.

Even if Lula opts for a provisional measure (which would have immediate effect), supporters of the PT say that it would still be necessary to regulate the payment – ​​which is normally done after the approval of the final text by Congress, to have more security about the design of the program .

Therefore, the expectation is that the extra benefit of R$ 150 per child up to six years old will not be implemented right at the beginning of Lula’s term.

Even if the gradualism in the implementation of the extra benefit for children has a more concentrated effect on the expenses forecast for 2023, spending on Bolsa Família in the following years should be impacted by other factors.

Members of the transition group see the need to improve the Cadastro Único, which centralizes information on families benefiting from social programs.

During the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, there was a multiplication of single-person families in CadÚnico, although there were no significant demographic changes in such a short space of time.

In November, when Auxílio Brasil was implemented, there were 2.2 million families with a single member. In less than a year, that number jumped to 5.3 million, according to data from the Ministry of Citizenship.

Specialists outside the government attribute the problem to the current rules of the Auxílio Brasil, which set a minimum amount per family regardless of the number of members or the degree of poverty. In this way, a mother with three minor children ends up receiving the same amount as a single man, for example.

In October, sociologist Leticia Bartholo, former Deputy National Secretary for Citizenship Income, published on social networks an estimate that “gross inclusion errors” in the program due to the artificial division of families generate an undue expense of at least R$ 16 billion a year.

The PT’s team considers that it will be necessary to change the design of the program to fix this type of problem. A careful analysis of the status of the cadastre is also considered essential to re-equate the policy.

The objective is that families with more children can receive more money than families without children.

Despite the possibility of a lower final expenditure with Bolsa Família, PT supporters and PEC articulators continue to work with an estimate of BRL 175 billion —although the amount is not fixed in the proposal presented to Congress.

The idea was to quickly resolve the budget issue and leave the new government’s social area technicians with an open path to implement the new installment of the program.

A wing of the transition team even questioned the estimated amount to be released with the Transition PEC, seeking a more conservative solution – with a license to spend less than what Lula’s political allies defend.

However, what prevailed was the proposal that removes the Bolsa Família from the spending ceiling, without setting a value. The measure will free up a space of BRL 105 billion currently reserved for the social program in the 2023 budget proposal.