Lula recreates Bolsa Família, but part of it is for later – 08/04/2023 – Market

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) fulfilled his campaign promise and relaunched Bolsa Família in the first hundred days of his administration. The program breaks records in income transfers to beneficiaries and should grow even more, but only as of June.

The new Bolsa Família format provides an additional amount of R$ 50 for families with pregnant women, children and young people between 7 and 18 years old. This extra benefit has not yet taken effect.

Technicians from the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance say that Caixa’s system, which is responsible for making Bolsa Família payments, is being updated and, in June, this complement will start to be deposited.

With this, the average value per family in the social program will reach the R$ 714 expected by the government.

The monthly income is currently estimated at R$ 670 per family. At the end of 2021, when President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) switched from Bolsa Família to Auxílio Brasil, the average benefit was approximately R$ 242 per month.

“The program is generous, but it has to have fiscal backing. [garantia de orçamento] still has to be clarified for years to come. The R$714 is a record, but if the program were better focused, it would have an even greater effect on GDP [Produto Interno Bruto] and poverty reduction”, said economist Marcelo Neri, director of FGV Social.

One of the main criticisms of the Auxílio Brasil, created by the Bolsonaro government, was the way in which the benefit for poor families was calculated.

In the previous version of Bolsa Família, the amount transferred depended on the number of children and income bracket of each person. In Auxílio Brasil, the program did not take into account the size of families and paid R$ 600 even for people who lived alone.

The reformulated Bolsa Família maintained the floor of R$600, but Lula created new benefits to give more money to those who need it most. Therefore, there is now an additional R$ 150 per child from 0 to 6 years old, in addition to the R$ 50 that begins to be paid in June.

For Neri, this represents an advance in relation to the Auxílio Brasil, but still leaves distortions between the amount that could be transferred to families of different sizes – using the same program budget.

Members of the Planalto Palace and the Ministry of Social Development say that the government will wait for the end of the process of scanning those enrolled in the program to announce targets for Bolsa Família – such as the number of families assisted.

Calculations by the folder indicate that, on average, the new Bolsa Família will serve around 20.8 million homes this year.

In March, 21.2 million homes received the benefit. The number represents a drop in relation to the level of 21.9 million families that were in the Auxílio Brasil in February, a month before the launch of the reformulated Bolsa Família.

The downward trend in coverage, therefore, should continue in the coming months.

This movement is explained by the search for irregular payments, mainly for single-person families –composed of a single member.

Still in the transition of government, one of the problems encountered by Lula’s team was the explosion of registrations of solo families after Bolsonaro instituted a minimum amount to be paid regardless of the size of the family.

Many of these families were motivated to split in order to receive a higher amount.

Therefore, the number of single-person families jumped from 2.2 million in October 2021, before the launch of Auxílio Brasil, to 5.8 million at the end of Bolsonaro’s term.

The cuts in irregular registrations make room in the Bolsa Família budget for the entry of more beneficiaries and, with that, the government hopes to keep the queue at zero.

In the reformulation of Bolsa Família, the government also announced that the new program will include families with income of up to R$218 per person —an increase in relation to the poverty range, which was up to R$210 per person.

The measure will allow more families to be eligible to receive the new Bolsa Família. Even so, the government hopes, at first, to reduce the number of families in the program in relation to the current level due to the exclusion of irregular registrations.

The government still needs to approve the MP (provisional measure) that creates the new version of the social program. The text should be reported by a deputy allied with the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL).

A clash between the House and Senate has stalled votes on provisional measures in Congress. But the government has advanced in an agreement so that the most important proposals, such as the Bolsa Família, can be analyzed this semester.