Despite the slowdown of the past few years, and the 2009 world recession, Brazil’s GDP per person grew by an average of 2.5% annually from 2003 to 2014. This was more than three times the growth rate during the preceding two terms of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who implemented “Washington Consensus” policies and remains a much-preferred statesman in the US capital. Before Cardoso there was a decade-and-a-half of even worse economic failure, and income per person actually fell. This return to growth, plus the government’s use of increased revenues to boost social spending, has reduced Brazil’s poverty rate by 55% and extreme poverty by 65%. For those in extreme poverty, the government’s internationally renowned conditional cash transfer programme – Bolsa Familia – provided 60% of their income in 2011, up from 10% in 2003. A hefty increase in the minimum wage – 84% since 2003 after adjusting for inflation – also helped quite a bit. Unemployment has fallen to a record low of 4.9%; it was 12.3% when Lula da Silva took office in 2003. The quality of jobs has also increased: the percentage of workers stuck in the informal sector of the economy shrank from 22% to 13%. Brazil’s income distribution remains one of the more unequal in the world, but there was significant progress here too. From 2003 to 2012, the 40% of the population just below the median nearly doubled their share of the country’s income gains, as compared to the prior decade. This came at the expense of the richest 10%. The poor have most obviously benefited from this transformation of the Brazilian economy, and this is reflected in the polls. But it is not just the poor who improved their wellbeing: with a median household income of only about $800, the vast majority of Brazilians were set to gain from the rising wages, shrinking unemployment and significantly increased pensions that the past decade had brought.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 18:52:34 +0000
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