More than 8.6 million Brazilians left the poverty line in 2024. This socioeconomic performance brought the share of the population living in poverty down from 27.3 percent in 2023 to 23.1 percent. It is the lowest level recorded since 2012, when the Brazilian statistics agency IBGE began compiling these data.

In 2024, Brazil had 48.9 million people living on less than USD 6.85 per day, equivalent to about BRL 694 per month, adjusted for inflation that year. This is the threshold the World Bank uses to define the poverty line. In 2023, 57.6 million Brazilians were living in poverty.

The data are part of the Summary of Social Indicators survey, released on Wednesday (Dec. 3).

The indicators show a third consecutive year of decline in both the number and proportion of poor people, marking a post-pandemic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis that began in 2020.

See how poverty has evolved in the country:

• 2012: 68.4 million
• 2019: 67.5 million (last year before the pandemic)
• 2020: 64.7 million
• 2021: 77 million
• 2022: 66.4 million
• 2023: 57.6 million
• 2024: 48.9 million

In 2012, the proportion of people below the poverty line was 34.7 percent. In 2019, it stood at 32.6 percent. In the first year of the pandemic (2020), it fell to 31.1 percent and reached its highest point in the series in 2021, at 36.8 percent. Since then, it has declined year after year, from 31.6 percent in 2022 to 23.1 percent last year.

Work and income transfer

IBGE researcher André Geraldo de Moraes Simões, responsible for the study, explained that in 2020, the year the pandemic broke out, poverty declined because of emergency assistance programs, such as Emergency Aid, paid by the Brazilian government.

“These benefits returned in April 2021, but with lower amounts and more limited access, and the labor market was still fragile, so poverty increased,” said Simões.

According to him, beginning in 2022, the labor market started to recover, accompanied by assistance programs with higher benefit amounts, factors that supported socioeconomic improvement.

“The combination of a stronger labor market and expanded income-transfer programs - mainly Bolsa Família and Auxílio Brasil, which rose in value and reached more people - contributed to this outcome,” he noted.

In the second half of 2022, the Auxílio Brasil program began to pay BRL 600 per month to low-income families. In 2023, the program was renamed Bolsa Família.

Extreme poverty

In the last year, Brazil also saw a decline in extreme poverty, defined as living on an income of up to USD 2.15 per day, or about BRL 218 per month when adjusted for last year’s values.

From 2023 to 2024, this contingent fell from 9.3 million to 7.4 million, meaning that 1.9 million people left this condition. This evolution caused the proportion of the population in extreme poverty to drop from 4.4 percent to 3.5 percent, the lowest level ever recorded.

In 2012, when these data began to be compiled, the rate stood at 6.6 percent. In 2021, it reached 9 percent, equivalent to 18.9 million people.

Regional inequality

The IBGE figures clearly show regional inequality: both poverty and extreme poverty in the North and Northeast remain above the national rate.

Poverty
• Northeast: 39.4 percent
• North: 35.9 percent
• Brazil: 23.1 percent
• Southeast: 15.6 percent
• Midwest: 15.4 percent
• South: 11.2 percent

Extreme poverty
• Northeast: 6.5 percent
• North: 4.6 percent
• Brazil: 3.5 percent
• Southeast: 2.3 percent
• Midwest: 1.6 percent
• South: 1.5 percent

“These are the country’s most vulnerable regions, and this is also reflected in their labor markets,” says André Simões.

Another inequality highlighted in the survey is racial: among white Brazilians, 15.1 percent were living in poverty, and 2.2 percent in extreme poverty.

Among black Brazilians, poverty reached 25.8 percent, and extreme poverty 3.9 percent. Among the mixed-race population, the figures were 29.8 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively.

Lowest Gini since 2012

The Summary of Social Indicators updated the so-called Gini Index, which measures income inequality. The index ranges from 0 to 1 - the higher the number, the greater the inequality.

In 2024, the Gini Index reached 0.504, the lowest value since these data began to be compiled in 2012. In 2023, it stood at 0.517.

To measure the impact of social programs on reducing inequality, IBGE presented a calculation of what the Gini Index would be if there were no welfare policies.

The study found that the indicator would be 0.542 if there were no income-transfer programs, such as Bolsa Família and the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC), which provides one minimum wage per month to seniors aged 65 or older or to people with disabilities of any age.

Another hypothetical exercise carried out by the researchers examined the situation of people aged 60 or over if there were no social security benefits.

Extreme poverty among the elderly would rise from 1.9 percent to 35.4 percent, the institute projects. Poverty would increase from 8.3 percent to 52.3 percent.

The survey also shows that poverty was more prevalent among informal workers. Among those employed without a formal contract, one in five (20.4%) were poor. Among workers with a formal contract, the share was 6.7 percent.