In more than a thousand municipalities, 3 out of 4 beneficiaries are left without government assistance

Even with the expansion of Bolsa Família to create a social brand for the management of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the transition to Auxílio Brasil leaves a gap in many municipalities in the country.

With the end of the payment of emergency aid, created to support the vulnerable population during the pandemic, about 27 million families were left without government help, outside the new income transfer program.

This impact is strongly observed in cities that felt the effects of emergency aid, although they had lesser coverage of Bolsa Família. In 1,036 municipalities in the country, 75% or more of the population that had access to any of these benefits throughout 2021 remained without service.

These cities are among those that most expanded social assistance coverage while emergency aid was in effect.

In these municipalities, 9.1 million people received until October the installments created by the government during the pandemic or the payment of Bolsa Família. Only 1.8 million of them, however, have access to the new social program created by the Bolsonaro government, with an average benefit of R$409 per month.

The radiography of assistance coverage for vulnerable families takes into account data from the Ministry of Citizenship released on Tuesday (11).

In January, the government increased the number of families served by Auxílio Brasil from 14.6 million to 17.6 million, with an average benefit of R$ 409 per month. Coverage is still far from the level of 44.6 million who received emergency aid or Bolsa Família during most of 2021.

Auxílio Brasil emerged in a context of increasing poverty in the country and greater demand for social assistance. From January to November 2021, more than 1.9 million families entered the poverty and extreme poverty ranges of the Cadastro Único (which brings together the public that can qualify for social programs).

The expectation of government technicians is that this number will be even higher, as there was a significant demand at the end of last year with the end of emergency aid.

Almost 90% of the municipalities where there is a greater loss of care coverage are small or medium-sized, with up to 100,000 inhabitants. In Goianira (GO), around 15,000 families had access to Bolsa Família and emergency aid payments until October, but only 3,469 are on Auxílio Brasil.

There is also a significant loss of coverage in capitals and other large cities. This is the case of Florianópolis, Cuiabá, Goiânia, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte and Brasília.

In these 1,036 municipalities, more than R$ 1.8 billion circulated per month with the payments of emergency aid and Bolsa Família until October 2021.

With Auxílio Brasil, the volume stands at R$ 722 million — a significant drop in assistance to the most vulnerable during the period in which economic recovery is sought.

In Nova Serrana (MG), a municipality of 105,000 inhabitants, 23,600 families had access to some benefit until October, but only 1,576 are included in the new government program.

The municipal secretary of Social Development, Gustavo Amaral, says that, because of the pandemic and the economic crisis, there was an increase in demand for assistance programs in the city. The demand for enrollment in the Auxílio Brasil registry was a sign of increasing poverty.

“Whoever wants to enter the Single Registry today needs to schedule an interview for March. Besides, not all registered people are able to enter the program. There is a waiting list to receive the benefit”, says Amaral.

Nova Serrana is an industrial city, with a strong presence in the footwear industry. Due to the requirement for qualification, part of the residents of the municipality have difficulty finding employment in the region, which worsens the situation.

For Luciana Leão, assistant professor and researcher at the University of Michigan, the income transfer, which aims to provide enough for families to feed themselves, is the first step in the fight against poverty.

“Jobs in Brazil are still very fragile. In the cities of the interior, even with the growth of consumption due to emergency aid, the extremely poor family was hardly able to benefit from a boost in economic activity”, says Leão, who is an expert in fight poverty.

The South region concentrates more than half of the cities with a significant loss of care coverage. There are 564 municipalities in which 75% or more of the former beneficiaries are without payments.

The three states in the region face this imbalance because they had a considerable increase in beneficiaries during the duration of the emergency aid. However, a large part of the population does not meet the requirements of Auxílio Brasil.

The Minister of Citizenship, João Roma, told the leaf that it is not possible to compare the number of beneficiaries because of the characteristics of each program. He pointed out that Bolsa Família and Auxílio Brasil are programs to overcome poverty, while the emergency aid was a response to a calamity.

“Government’s focus [com o Auxílio Brasil] are the people most in need. You cannot structure such a program in a period after the payment of emergency aid without defined criteria”, said the minister.

Roma highlighted that emergency aid made payments of BRL 350 billion, while the Auxílio Brasil budget for 2022 is around BRL 90 billion.

The minister also said that the government is working to offer a line of microcredit to Brazilians who do not receive payments from the new program and said that it hopes to expand the public of Auxílio Brasil to 18 million families by March. “It’s a different program, with transformative elements.”

By raising the average amount of income transfers, Bolsonaro seeks to mitigate the effects of inflation and can reap political dividends – since the previous level of Bolsa Família did not exceed R$ 200 and had not been readjusted since 2018.

The transition, however, takes place in a scenario in which the country faces low growth and an unemployment rate that has not dropped to the levels recorded in the period before the pandemic.

To receive emergency aid, the income per family member could not exceed half a minimum wage (R$ 550). In the case of Auxílio Brasil, this limit was raised to R$210, a level approved by Congress and sanctioned by Bolsonaro.

In Fagundes Varela (RS), a municipality of 2,741 inhabitants, 201 families received emergency aid or Bolsa Família until October, but only 8 are covered by Auxílio Brasil.

The city’s mayor, Nelton Carlos Conte (MDB), says that most of the recipients of emergency aid were self-employed, who do not have a stable income.

“The population with greater economic and social fragility was assisted, and they were able to earn an income [nesses meses de auxílio]. This ended up influencing the chaining of other sectors and moved economic activity in the city”, says Conte.

The other municipalities impacted by the exchange of emergency aid for Auxílio Brasil are concentrated in the Southeast region (356 cities) and in the Midwest, where 92 cities will have a reduction of 75% or more in the number of beneficiaries.

The impact is smaller in the North (23 municipalities) and in the Northeast (1 city). Both regions had broader coverage of Bolsa Família, which allows a large part of the beneficiaries to be absorbed by Auxílio Brasil.