Focus on Brazil’s Poor Helps Rousseff’s Reelection Chances

by Bill Hayes

In Focus on Brazil’s Poor Helps Rousseff’s Reelection Chances, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the Brazilian president’s focus on social issues may get her re-elected.

The centerpiece of the government’s war on poverty is Bolsa Familia, a 10-year-old program that gives poor families a cash payment of at least 70 reais per month if they keep their children healthy and in school. Under Rousseff, the number of households enrolled in Bolsa Familia has grown by 1 million, to 13.8 million — equal to about one-quarter of the Brazilian population. And by early 2014, the government expects to add 700,000 families, according to Tiago Falcão Silva, the official who leads the Brazil Without Misery program in the Social Development Ministry. “We created mechanisms to overcome extreme poverty from a monetary standpoint,” says Silva. “Other, often more challenging tasks remain — you can’t provide health care and education with a debit card.” [more]