Auxílio Brasil queue reappears after the election and already has 128,000 families

With the second round of the presidential election over, the Auxílio Brasil benefit program, run by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), once again recorded a waiting list, something that had not happened since August, when the electoral campaign gained momentum.

According to data obtained by Folha, 128 thousand families entered the list in November. This means that they have already had their registration approved by the Ministry of Citizenship, responsible for the program, but have not yet been assisted. Sought, the Ministry of Citizenship did not respond on the reason for damming the concessions.

The queue started the year 2022 at zero. Without enough budget in the program, however, the queue grew month after month and, in July, it reached the mark of 1.569 million families.

With an eye on re-election, Bolsonaro made efforts to expand the budget of the Auxílio Brasil in the second half of the year, and managed to keep the queues at zero in August, September and October, months of the election campaign, in addition to expanding the number of families in the income transfer program. .

In October, the number of beneficiaries surpassed 21 million, a record that was repeated this month.

By boosting Auxílio Brasil, President Bolsonaro’s campaign hoped to improve the president’s electoral performance in regions of the country and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) showed greater voting intentions.

Bolsonaristas recognized that the measure was one of the main electoral bets of the campaign. They also regretted that the expansion of the social program had been adopted in a period very close to the election, which made it difficult to reap the electoral dividends — the political effect of this type of action is not immediate.

New queue increases pressure on elected government

The impoundment of low-income families that fit the profile of Auxílio Brasil generates even more pressure for the program at the beginning of the term of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who plans to resume the Bolsa Família brand.

The transition team estimates an expenditure of BRL 175 billion next year with the social program. This includes BRL 157 billion for the minimum benefit of BRL 600 per family and BRL 18 billion for the campaign promise to grant BRL 150 per child up to six years old.

In the current format, Auxílio Brasil represents an expense of BRL 13 billion per month for the public coffers —calculation based on data from November, when the program served 21.53 million families and registered a queue of 128 thousand.

At this monthly level, the cost already eats up the entire budget of R$157 billion estimated by the PT. That is, there is no room to reset the queue or to prevent it from growing.

Members of Lula’s transition team say it may not be possible to serve everyone in the queue immediately once he takes office. The priority will be to redesign the program’s rules in the first quarter and carry out a more careful analysis of registrations as of January, to prevent people without the social profile being included in the program to receive the benefit.

Because of the criteria adopted during the Bolsonaro administration, there was a large increase in the number of beneficiaries of the Auxílio Brasil classified as poor or extremely poor families with only one member.

This beneficiary profile more than doubled in one year, going from 2.2 million in November last year to 5.5 million today.

This is one of the main criticisms made by the government to the current administration’s program: it does not distinguish between families with many children, who would need more resources, and individual beneficiaries. Everyone gets the same amount.

In November, for example, the average benefit transferred was close to R$608, with the minimum amount being R$600.

In Bolsa Família, whose structure the Lula government intends to resume, the amount transferred depended on the number of children and income range of each registered family.

Despite the swelling in the number of individual beneficiaries, only last month, after the election period, the Ministry of Citizenship started a process to investigate possible irregularities.

For now, however, the blocking of benefits has not yet registered an unusual behavior.

The objective of the president-elect’s team is that families with a “clear profile” for Bolsa Família —women with children—be a priority in queuing.

The expectation is that, with the verification of irregularities, there will be more space to place new families in the program.

The changes in the rules and the return of the Bolsa Família name must be made by means of a provisional measure (MP) to be prepared in the first two or three months of government, according to members of the transition team in the area of ​​social assistance.