RIO DE JANEIRO – Many people in Brazil are struggling to cope with less pandemic aid from the government and jumping food prices, with millions expected to slip back into poverty.Brazil’s government, starting this month, halved the amount of its monthly emergency cash transfers to help Brazil’s poor withstand the hardship of the economic meltdown, down to 300 reais ($54).
As the government winds down the program through year-end, with unemployment still high, many of those people who benefited will become newly impoverished, according to Marcelo Neri, director of the social policy center at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university and think tank.