Download or read book Brazil Poverty and Equity Assessment written by World Bank Group and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2020, Brazil was about to face socioeconomic disruptions of historical proportions. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has broken several undesirable Brazilian records. First, the pandemic wreaked an enormous direct human toll, sickening millions and causing the death of 195,441 Brazilians in 2020 and 619,056 in 2021. Second, the Brazilian economy experienced its worst contraction in recorded history, with real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth in 2020 at -4.7 percent (compared to the previous record of -4.4 percent in 2015). Third, COVID-related closures and other measures led to a massive, unprecedented exit of workers, with an estimated 10 million people leaving the labor force between the third quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2020. Employment opportunities were scarce for those who remained in the labor force, with the unemployment rate standing at 14.6 percent in the third quarter of 2020. Many individuals at the bottom of the income distribution work in precarious jobs and lack a resilient source of income, forcing them to rely on public transfers during the pandemic. The significant progress in Brazilian households' welfare in the 2000-2010 decade responded mainly to labor market dynamics. Between December 2003 and December 2014, formal employment grew on average 5 percent annually, outpacing annual GDP growth of 3.5 percent (Campos and Souen 2017). Increases in the minimum wage (Cord, Genoni, and Rodriguez-Castelan 2015) and a surge in skills (including more highly skilled labor among the vulnerable) contributed positively to the increase in welfare. Still, a significant share of Brazilian workers has remained informal or not protected by the National Social Security System (INSS). When economic shocks hit Brazil, the labor market outcomes of low-income individuals are the first to be affected. Thus, income effects for the poorest are strongly correlated with the rollout of social protection cash transfers. The Programa Bolsa Familia (PBF) decreased its coverage in the years following the 2014 crisis when Brazil's poverty rate was increasing. Meanwhile, the widespread coverage of the Auxilio Emergencial program in 2020 contributed to the decrease of national poverty rates. Other income groups can weather economic shocks much better. People in middle of the income distribution maintain their steady pensions, and the richest Brazilian recover quickly thanks to savings, wealth, and accumulated assets that help them to adapt.