More than half of São Paulo residents replaced meat with eggs – 02/06/2023 – Jorge Abrahão

In a snack bar in downtown São Paulo, the reporter talks to a middle-aged man while he asks the clerk for a coxinha. It’s lunch time. The camera shows the plate, then opens to the greenhouse full of snacks, and then focuses on the interviewee. He listens carefully to the question. Is it hard to eat rice and beans for lunch? He nods in agreement and says that even the PF, the famous dish-made dish, is weighing on his pocket. “I only have money for coxinha; it’s the best value for money”, he justifies.

The situation is no different for a significant part of the residents of São Paulo. Lack of money to put basic items on the plate, and also lack for housing expenses, to buy medicine, clothes, for the bus ticket. In the indigestible reality of the most populous city in the country, for many people there is not even space for leisure. The budget does not allow for fun.

The latest survey Living in SP: Poverty and Income, recently launched by Rede Nossa São Paulo, in partnership with Ipec, helps to better understand this context.

The survey shows that more people say that their income has remained stable over the past year. It would be good news if the percentage of those who perceive a reduction in income did not reach a significant portion of the total population (31%), a number that rises to 45% if we consider only the DE class.

Not by chance, 4 out of 10 city dwellers had to resort to extra activities to supplement their income. It’s a lot of people. In equivalent numbers, this means that more than 4.3 million people needed to do “odd jobs” to pay their bills at the end of the month. General services such as cleaning, renovations, maintenance and gardening are the most cited, but the list is much broader. Some sell clothes or second-hand items, others make jewelry and handicrafts, work as caregivers for children or the elderly, act as security and there are even those who host pets to make a little extra.

For those who need to count change to try to guarantee the basics, replacing rice and beans with coxinha can make a lot of difference. Food is the item that most impacts the household budget, according to the survey by Nossa São Paulo – around 86% of respondents mention this type of expense among those who consume the most monthly income.

This means, among other things, that the population realizes how much a market purchase weighs on their pockets. And it’s not little. Just look at the items that are no longer consumed or had reduced consumption in the last year. Check it out: 54% of those interviewed say that meat consumption has decreased (including cuts of pork, chicken, poultry, etc.) and another 9% have stopped buying these inputs. Together, the numbers represent nearly two-thirds of the population.

There are other foods that also disappeared from people’s tables. Half of São Paulo residents cut or reduced their consumption of milk, cheese and yogurt. In class DE, 1 out of 5 respondents even cut rice and beans. In this context, eating coxinha seems like a luxury.

On the empty shelves of the population, even what could be good news hides a problem with serious nutritional consequences. Egg consumption increased for 22% of people and remained stable for 62% of respondents – among the inputs analyzed in the survey, this is the type of food that had the greatest increase in consumption.

Looking at the other data, however, it is easy to conclude that the population substituted its source of protein to lighten the bills and stopped putting important items on the plate for an adequate daily diet. And so even rice and beans, so present and so connected to Brazilian culture, became a bargaining chip for low-income people.

Even those who manage to keep the refrigerator minimally stocked realize the situation of hunger and poverty in the city. The survey by Nossa São Paulo shows that 80% think that the number of homeless people has increased in the last year. Unemployment is pointed out by the majority of respondents (84% of the total mentions) as one of the main reasons for the growth of this population, followed by the high cost of living in the city (66%) and the rise in rent prices (56%). .

Like any problem caused by multiple factors (economic, social, historical, cultural, structural), the solution to these issues is quite complex. It will not be in the short term or in a single term that we will stop seeing poverty and misery so exposed in the city streets. A single action will not solve the problem. But you have to face it.

The first step is to give due priority to the issue and establish a set of initiatives and policies that, in an integrated manner, in different areas, will lead to solutions. They exist, and the population knows it too. Housing policies, for example, appear among the first mentions of what can be done to get people off the streets. Employment generation, guarantee of a minimum income and professional training are among the main measures to be adopted to improve monthly income, in the opinion of the interviewees.

Such a sensitive issue for the city’s residents, as the survey also showed, cannot be put in the background by the public authorities. People notice the poverty all around, although it often appears in the form of prejudice. And here is the understanding that having food on your plate and a roof over your head is not basic, it is little. Much more is needed to solve the biggest problem of a city as unequal as São Paulo. Social assistance is essential, but the solution also involves other areas of public administration. Prioritizing the fight against poverty when defining investments and the municipal budget would be a good start. But only the beginning.

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