New program should help 80 mi Brazilians in the red

The Brazilian government will create an initiative to help people in debt, among them those who have taken out loans to be deducted from their monthly allowance under Auxílio Brasil—the country’s income transfer program for families living in poverty and extreme poverty.

Families in extreme poverty are those with a monthly income of up to BRL 105 per person; households in poverty make between BRL 105.01 and 210 per person a month, as stipulated by the former Ministry of Citizenship, now Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family, and Fight against Hunger.

The new plan, current Minister Wellington Dias reported, was named Desenrola Brasil (“Brazil Untangled”), and is still under development.

Approximately 80 million Brazilians should be reached, of whom 3.5 million have debts stemming from loans to be deducted directly from their welfare allowance every month. Debts add up to BRL 9.5 billion.

The new initiative is expected to be designed in collaboration with other ministries. “This problem with those facing debt from the Auxílio Brasil or Bolsa Família [as the benefit became known under Lula] is quite serious—first from the legal standpoint. The program was used in the election period with clearly electoral purposes. President Lula had proved sensitive to the issue since the campaign,” Wellington Dias declared.