R$400 from Auxílio Brasil targets voter who gives Lula a triple advantage over Bolsonaro

The Auxílio Brasil pursued by the Jair Bolsonaro government (without a party) will target in a focused way a good part of the voters who today do not want to reelect the president: the poorest, the Northeastern and the unemployed.

These three large groups represent up to half of voters and are among those who assess the Bolsonaro government the worst. In relation to the president, they also signal almost triple the voting intentions of his biggest adversary in 2022, PT Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Designed to pay an average of R$ 400 per month to 17 million families next year, Brazil Aid with this amount still depends on the approval, in the Senate, of the PEC dos Precatórios, which defaults on federal debts recognized by the Courts.

But, in Bolsonaro’s plans, the program in this format already has a date to end: two months after the second round of 2022.

The R$ 400 is equivalent to more than double the average value of the extinct Bolsa Família. But, in 2023, the benefit should drop to around R$ 224, an amount 17.8% higher than the last average payment of Bolsa Família.

The recent readjustment was below low-income inflation (20.5% by INPC) since July 2018, when the benefit was updated. When dropping to R$ 224, the value will not cover inflation until the end of next year.

“Brazil Aid of R$ 400 in the election year will be retractable, as it will shrink ahead. It is unprecedented when it comes to a benefit that intends to replace Bolsa Família”, says Marcelo Neri, director of FGV Social and former president of Ipea ( Institute of Applied Economic Research).

“The program focuses on an audience in the election year that is not the president’s. The question is whether the beneficiaries will understand the ‘gotcha’ of the value, which will fall shortly after the election.”

For Mauro Paulino, director-general of Datafolha, if the new Auxílio Brasil reaches R$ 400 in 2022, it should influence voters and could make a difference.

“It is likely that a significant portion of voters overlook many of the negative aspects of the Bolsonaro government in exchange for this benefit,” says Paulino. “But the potential for recovery should be smaller than Lula’s after the monthly allowance crisis.”

A scheme for buying votes from congressmen by the government in 2005, the monthly allowance threatened Lula’s mandate and was the main theme of his opponents in the 2006 campaign, in which the PT was reelected.

Although Bolsonaro goes further with Auxílio Brasil, from 2005 to 2006, before the electoral campaign, Lula increased the Bolsa Família budget by 32% (to an INPC of 5%) and increased it from 8.7 million to 11 million (+27 %) the number of beneficiaries.

Unlike Bolsonaro, the PT was not tied to the spending ceiling to grant the increase and had an expanding economy. GDP growth was 4% in 2006, 6.1% in 2007 and would reach 7.5% in 2010; with inflation under control.

Now, Bolsonaro may enter the election year with the economy slowing down and inflation in double digits, especially in food.

Although Brazil Aid has a much smaller reach than the Emergency Aid paid in 2020 —it reached 66 million people and made Bolsonaro’s approval soar to 37%, down from the current 22%, according to Datafolha—, the program will have great penetration among those unhappy with the president.

More than half of voters (51%) live in families with a monthly income of less than two minimum wages (R$ 2,200), according to Datafolha’s stratification. Among them, 54% intend to vote for Lula in the first round in 2022; and only 20% in Bolsonaro.

Although Auxílio Brasil is aimed at those who are in poverty, specialists say that there is a great intersection between those who make their living from unstable or temporary jobs —and who earn less— and those who will be in the program.

Another point is that, as was the case with Bolsa Família, practically half of the resources of Auxílio Brasil will continue to be directed to the Northeast, which concentrates a quarter of the country’s voters.

It is precisely in the northeastern states that Lula has the greatest advantage over Bolsonaro: 61% to 16%, respectively. The PT’s leadership is also great among the unemployed (10% of voters): 55% want to vote for Lula; 19% in the president.

Several academic works on the impact of Bolsa Família on elections found a positive correlation in favor of the candidate who offered the benefit.

A study by FGV in 2014 showed that each percentage point of program coverage in a municipality yielded, on average, 0.32 percentage point in Dilma Rousseff’s vote that year.

Another, from the University of Brasília about the PT’s victory in 2006, found that “program beneficiaries tend to vote more for Lula, in addition to evaluating the federal government and the president’s work more positively than non-beneficiaries” .

At the end of July, Bolsonaro acknowledged in an interview with the Northeast radio network the electoral influence that assistance programs have in Brazil. “I believe that Bolsa Família was the mainstay of the elections,” he said, referring to PT victories.

According to political scientist Carlos Pereira, from FGV’s Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration, although this type of benefit bears electoral fruit, it is difficult to determine the impact of Auxílio Brasil this time, mainly due to high unemployment and inflation. “Bolsonaro is playing with what he can and has in the strata that prefer Lula today,” he says.

In addition to being less powerful than the Emergency Aid paid in 2020, whose peak value reached R$600 a month, the Aid Brazil must have a limited reach because Bolsonaro will have to share part of the money raised with the PEC dos Precatórios (about R$91 .6 billion) with amendments from parliamentarians.

“It’s the price the president pays for not efficiently managing his political coalition. In the absence of that, the game ends up becoming predatory,” says Pereira.

As Bolsonaro is unable to advance general interest policies in Congress that benefit the country as a whole, increasing the chances of re-election of parliamentarians, they would end up taking the maximum resources for themselves in order to try to guarantee their political survival.

For the approval of the PEC dos Precatórios in the Chamber, the president of the House, Arthur Lira (Progresistas-AL), and the Bolsonaro government sponsored the distribution of at least R$ 1.4 billion in parliamentary amendments in recent weeks.

Other billions of reais still to be defined after the approval of the PEC should irrigate more amendments and could boost the electoral fund next year.

Pereira believes, however, that it will be difficult for Bolsonaro to eliminate Lula’s “recall” among the poorest voters, who felt life improve in the years in which the PT ruled the country.

Another problem for Bolsonaro, according to Vinícius Botelho, former secretary in the Ministries of Social Development and Citizenship (2016-2020), is that the lower reach of Auxílio Brasil, even with R$ 400 in 2022, does not erase the perception of worsening of life that 66 million Brazilians have had since the end of the R$600 Emergency Aid —followed by rising inflation.

Botelho believes that the government could have designed the program better for next year, reaching more families. “It will be a very high value for a small number of people”, he says.

This happened because Bolsonaro raised the income ceiling allowed for entry into the program to a level that does not replace the inflationary loss of recent years and ignores international criteria of poverty used by organizations like the UN — which limited the public.

In the assessment of Naercio Menezes, director of the Brazilian Center for Research Applied to Early Childhood and a professor at Insper, despite not having significantly expanded the beneficiaries, Auxílio Brasil differs little from Bolsa Família, but it brings positive changes for families with children small.

It highlights the First Infancy Benefit (R$130), for families with children up to three years old (per member); and Child Citizen Aid (R$200 for part-time or R$300 in full), for payment of tuition fees in private day care centers.

“The change of name to Auxílio Brasil is clearly an electoral strategy, but the new benefit has not worsened Bolsa Família”, he says.