RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president is using the income transfer as his trump card – programs of this type leveraged ex-presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula, and Dilma Rousseff.
With the government’s image tarnished by slow vaccination, which is having health and economic impacts, and by the Senate Covid CPI (investigative committee), President Jair Bolsonaro is focused on bolstering social benefits, a move that led to a rise in the popularity of past governments, and plans to expand the Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) program from 14 to 20 million families served by the end of the year.
A fierce critic of the program in the past, created and expanded under ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) from the union of programs of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government (PSDB), Bolsonaro is now pushing to increase the average amount by about 50%, reaching close to R$300 (US$58.6) per family per month as the race for reelection in 2022 nears.
Source: Exame