When Auxílio Brasil (Brazil Aid Program) was created in August 2021, it brought the end of the world-renowned Programa Bolsa Família (Family Grant Program). Without studies to support this decision or even discussions with civil society, the trajectory of one of the largest conditional cash transfer programs ended abruptly. Family Grant was created in 2003, during Lula’s first year as president. It was intended to tackle poverty and hunger while being provided and supported by a robust social network that assisted workers living in poverty and extreme poverty.
Supported by a set of social policies, such as the enhancement of the minimum wage, stimulus to family farming, new jobs, and health and education policies, Family Grant was a program that presented expressive and remarkable results in the history of Brazilian democratic experiences.
To mention a few of these achievements, in 2014, Brazil left the Hunger Map, which meant that less than 5 percent of the population was suffering from hunger. The kid's nutritional monitoring and vaccination happened consistently, and education networks worked collaboratively with the program’s management to ensure school attendance.
With Family Grant, the public language changed. We started talking openly about social work, hunger, and poverty as urgent social issues that can only be solved with the State’s action guided by democratic management.
Therefore, society’s participation in the federal government’s assistance programs was expanded. Social workers, researchers, representatives of social movements, and different sectors of society were called to speak up and improve Family Grant.
To make all this happen, Social Assistance Reference Centers (CRAS, in Portuguese) were created as part of the Single Social Assistance System, also known as SUAS. Throughout CRAS, families were assisted by social workers and trained public servants who referred them to the available federal, state, or municipal social programs according to their needs.
When someone arrived at a CRAS unit, the Single Registry for Social Programs of the federal government (CadÚnico, in Portuguese) was filled out covering a range of issues, including family composition, level of education, description of the house, access to basic sanitation, health, and education. Indigenous peoples, riverside dwellers, fishermen, and rural populations received care according to the specificities they have, which are different from those of families living in urban areas.
With the Social Registration Number (NIS, in Portuguese), families had access to a series of social policies and programs, such as exemption from application fees for civil service examinations, social electricity tariff, after-hours activities for children, professional training programs, vaccination monitoring, psychosocial care and so on.
In the wake of Emergency Aid, Brazil Aid promoted a strong appeal and propaganda around the amount of the installments to be paid to the families. Let's make this clear: money is important, and enough money for people to live with a minimum of dignity is a right. However, when we are talking about tackling poverty and extreme poverty, although money is one of the main elements, it is not sufficient. We all need to have access to health and education services. We need to be able to buy healthy and enough food, and access medicines and vaccination campaigns. Access to job opportunities, professional qualifications, and school teaching are rights.
By proposing installments of 400 reais (about 75 dollars) to beneficiaries, shifting the focus to the value apparently higher than that of the Family Grant, we are induced to forget about the entire social protection network necessary for life to function in its entirety. The grant installments do not consider the family composition, which can reduce the amount of money to be received when divided among the beneficiaries of the same family. In addition, they do not keep up with the cost of living. In cities such as Belo Horizonte, a basic-needs grocery package cost 650.16 reais (122.50 dollars) at the beginning of October.
With the end of a successful social program, it was to be expected that a better one would be implemented, one that would expand social assistance coverage, medical care, access to education, and healthy food.
However, that was not what happened – and we are in a worse situation. Today, the failure of the program can be seen in the growing number of people experiencing hunger – currently, 33.1 million people –, in CRAS's dwindling capacity to assist due to underfunding of the social protection network, and the absence of forms of follow-up in health and education.
As if all this were not bad enough, instead of expanding opportunities for the population, Brazil Aid focuses only on the idea that money is enough. That is indebting the families assisted by the program and Continuous Cash Benefit (Benefício de Prestação Continuada, in Portuguese) by putting them in the hands of financial agencies with the granting of so-called consigned credit. In other words, granting loans with immoral interest, taking part of the money from Brazil Aid installments, and establishing a money transfer mechanism that, instead of being used, for instance, to improve public services, will be sent to banks because the loan installments are deducted directly from the grant.
These are retired people, people living on the streets, informal workers, mothers, and unemployed workers being harassed since June this year for contracting a loan of just over 2.000 reais (376 dollars) to be used for the purchase of food, medicine, renting a room, etc. In the end, the loan contract will leave the grant installments lower than expected. The promise of maintaining Brazil Aid as a 600-real monthly payment does not hold up. The simulations of the payroll loan consider 400 reais as the base for estimates. If the financial agencies do not believe in the 600 reais figure, why would we believe it? There is no political interest in increasing the value of the grant. If there were, this would have already occurred permanently.
Furthermore, there are no vacancies in the budget forecast, so everyone who needs it is met. Brazil Aid is not beneficial for the population as a whole, as it does not tackle poverty and hunger. On the contrary: Brazil Aid outsources this role to individuals, beneficiaries or not, amid unemployment and the high cost of living. There are more people on the streets, more children out of school, and more public health costs. In the end, we all pay for it.
Denise De Sordi is a historian and postdoctoral researcher at COC/FIOCRUZ and FFLCH/USP.
Edited by: Flávia Chacon e Glauco Faria
