⁍ Brazil’s government on Monday detailed how it would pay for a new minimum income program called Renda Cidada.


⁍ President Jair Bolsonaro and Economy Minister Paulo Guedes still pledging to honor the country’s spending cap and fiscal rules.


⁍ The proposed program would replace Bolsa Familia, the successful flagship welfare program of former Workers Party President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.


– Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, is making good on a campaign promise to make the nation’s poorest residents eligible for a monthly minimum income. Bolsonaro says the program, called Renda Cidada, or “Citizen Income,” will be paid for with funds from the existing Bolsa Familia welfare program for women and children, as well as from an education fund, reports Reuters. The program is expected to cost around $9.2 billion. Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former Army captain who campaigned on a hard-right “Brazil First” agenda, says it will be up to the people to decide how they want to spend the money, the AP reports. He says the goal is to have the program up and running by Jan. 1, just ahead of the end of emergency welfare payments to the poor as a result of the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Critics say Bolsonaro is breaking with long-standing practice in Brazil, where welfare programs tend to run out of money as the economy slows. “This would put the federal government in the same situation as local states and municipalities: accumulation of unpaid debt,” a trader at a Sao Paulo bank tells Reuters. “It … raises concerns over accounting manipulation and does not change the country’s underlying fiscal condition.”



Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-economics/brazils-government-backs-new-basic-income-payments-to-poor-idUSKBN26J381