Poverty and Food Security in Brazil during the Pandemic
In contrast with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazil’s poverty rate is estimated to have decreased between 2019 and 2020 to 13.1 percent. Auxílio Emergencial (AE), a large emergency cash transfer program launched in April 2020, is b...
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| Language: | English |
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Washington, DC
2022
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099605106132289333/P17752703feb5801a0b5ef023c5cfae9648 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37551 |
| Summary: | In contrast with the rest of Latin
America and the Caribbean, Brazil’s poverty rate is
estimated to have decreased between 2019 and 2020 to 13.1
percent. Auxílio Emergencial (AE), a large emergency cash
transfer program launched in April 2020, is believed to be
the main driver of that decrease, because it more than
offset economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nonetheless, food insecurity (FI) estimates showed an
opposite trend: Severe and moderate FI went up in 2020. This
apparent paradox can be mostly explained by the way in which
poverty and FI are measured: Measurements of poverty are
based on annualized income estimates, while those of FI are
based on the occurrence of an event, whereby the sudden,
uncompensated loss of a job or reduction of benefits (such
as AE) can turn into the loss of a household’s ability to
feed itself in the short term. In 2021, both poverty and FI
may have increased. Simulations suggest that poverty
increased in 2021 to 18.7 percent. Meanwhile, about 18
percent of households reported running out of food in the
past 30 days owing to a lack of resources, twice the
pre-pandemic rate. Overall and food inflation, a sluggish
labor market recovery with falling real wages, and the
significant scaling down of the AE program are all factors
in this trend. The war in Ukraine has pushed inflationary
expectations upward. Given the projected 0.7 percent gross
domestic product (GDP) growth for 2022, labor incomes are
not expected to boost households’ consumption levels
significantly. Coupled with the complete elimination of AE,
poverty and FI may further deteriorate in 2022. |
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