Expenditure on civil servants grows again under Lula

In 2023, President Lula (PT) resumed the public service spending policy implemented in the previous two terms and closed the year with a 2.8% increase in expenses in the sector. The growth in expenditure occurred after four years of containment under the Bolsonaro government, when a 10.5% drop was recorded with the same expenditure.

The data are from the National Treasury Report for December 2023, which was published at the end of January 2024.

In his first two terms, Lula increased spending on public service by 9.1%, from 2003 to 2006, and by 30.8%, from 2007 to 2010. In his first term, Lula received the country from former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso with a 23.5% increase in the same expenses.

The trend was also maintained during the PT government, Dilma Rousseff, who in the first four years of government increased spending on civil servants by 4%. In Dilma’s second term, the increase was 5.5%. The PT member was removed from office in 2016 for tax fraud, but the policy regarding spending on civil servants was maintained by the vice-president, Michel Temer (MDB).

At the beginning of his third term, in April 2023, Lula warned that he would resume spending on the sector to “improve public service”.

“It’s not because we are in the digital world that we are going to do without human beings. We need people behind the counter to greet, smile, listen, say yes, no”, said the PT member at the time.

In total, according to the National Treasury, personnel expenses and social charges represent more than 17% of the Union’s total expenses.

At the beginning of this year, the PT took a stance against the approval of an administrative reform that is beginning to be debated in the Chamber of Deputies.

For the president of the Chamber, deputy Arthur Lira (PP-AL), “the government will have to enter into this discussion by the end of the year”.