As income inequality gets worse in the United States, it is falling in Brazil.

[Scuba]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/opinion/nocera-does-brazil-have-the-answer.html

Does Brazil Have the Answer?

What I saw was no illusion. Though its starting point was quite extreme, Brazil is a country that has seen income inequality drop over the last decade. Unemployment is at near record lows. And the growth of the middle class is quite stunning. By most estimates, upward of 40 million people have been pulled out of poverty in the last decade; extreme poverty, says the government, has been reduced by 89 percent. Per capita income has continued to grow even as G.D.P. growth has slowed.

Nevertheless, the economists I spoke to were uniformly bearish about the short-term future of the Brazilian economy. They pointed, for starters, to that slowdown in G.D.P., which they didn’t expect to pick up anytime soon. Despite the country’s enormous economic gains since the beginning of this century, there has been very little accompanying productivity gains. Indeed, several economists told me that the main reason unemployment was so low was that the economy was terribly inefficient. Too much of the economy was in the hands of the state, I was told, and, what’s more, it was a consumption-based economy that lacked necessary investment. And on and on. I got the sense that many economists believe that Brazil had been more lucky than good, and now its luck was running out. In a recent article about the Brazilian economy, The Economist put it starkly: “The Deterioration,” read its headline.

As I listened to the economists, though, I couldn’t help thinking about our own economy. Our G.D.P. growth was more than 4 percent in the third quarter of 2013, and, of course, our productivity has risen relentlessly. But, despite the growth, unemployment can’t seem to drop below 7 percent. And the middle class is slowly but surely being eviscerated — thanks, at least in part, to those productivity gains. Income inequality has become a fact of life in the United States, and while politicians decry that fact, they seem incapable of doing anything about it. Which made me wonder: Whose economy runs better, really?

...

And most striking of all — at least from the point of view of an American — for the last 10 years, Brazil has had a program called Bolsa Família, which essentially hands money to mothers living in poverty. In return, they have to ensure that their children go to school and avail themselves of health care services. There is no question that Bolsa Família has been enormously effective in reducing poverty.

[bhikkhu]

1. Doing a little research on that...

I was wondering how trade figured in the picture, whether Brazil has some advantageous trade agreements. More or less it doesn't seem so, or nothing really that fits in with the time period given. Other neighboring countries with multiple free trade pacts don't seem to be doing as well.

[ProSense]

2. Brazilian social security programme receives prestigious ISSA award

Brazilian social security programme receives prestigious ISSA award

ISSA, 15.10.2013 | Press release

The International Social Security Association has announced that the Government of Brazil has won its first “Award for Outstanding Achievement in Social Security” for the pioneering Bolsa Família poverty-reduction programme.

Launched in 2003 by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Bolsa Família is a conditional cash transfer programme that today reaches an estimated 50 million poor Brazilians, by supplementing their income. The scheme provides money to a family on the condition that the children attend school regularly and have been vaccinated. Cash transfers are made directly to female heads of household via a payment card, empowering them to make decisions about family education and health, which benefits child welfare.

Bolsa Família is the largest scheme of its kind in the world and is estimated to cost only around 0.5 per cent of Brazilian GDP. The programme aims to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty which can result in social dependency, and by linking cash transfers to school attendance, has improved results. The scheme has helped increase equality in Brazil, and since 2003 has lifted an estimated 36 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty, including 22 million people in the past two years, since the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff started her tenure.

In a message to the ISSA, President Rousseff stated that “Brazil accepts with great honour the ISSA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Social Security. This is an important recognition of the effort made by the Brazilian Government to improve social protection in the country. Bolsa Família guarantees that 36 million Brazilians can live above the extreme poverty line, keeps 16 million children and adolescents in school, and has been a decisive tool to reduce child mortality. Brazil has millions of reasons to be proud of Bolsa Família, a programme that reduces inequalities and benefits all Brazilians.”

Announcing the Award, the ISSA President Errol Frank Stoové said, “The Award recognizes the unique success of Bolsa Família, which has helped alleviate poverty amongst the poorest families in Brazil and has boosted education and health for their children. It has demonstrated that conditional cash transfer programmes can be highly effective forms of social security. It is our hope the ISSA Award will encourage more governments to take note of the Brazilian experience and consider adopting similar programmes to the benefit of their citizens.”

The ISSA Award will be presented to a high-level representative of the Government of Brazil at the World Social Security Forum, taking place in Doha, Qatar, from 10-15 November 2013. The Forum will be attended by the ISSA leadership, representatives of the Qatari authorities and more than 1,000 social security policy-makers and senior administrators from 150 countries.

About the Award

The Geneva-based International Social Security Association is the principal international organization working to promote and develop social security worldwide. The ISSA provides knowledge, professional standards and expert networks to strengthen the administrative capacity of member institutions. Founded in 1927, the ISSA today has more than 330 members in 157 countries.

The ISSA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Social Security will be attributed every three years by the ISSA Officers to an institution or programme that has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and development of social security, at the national or international level.

http://www.issa.int/News-Events/News2/Brazilian-social-security-programme-receives-prestigious-ISSA-award

Here's a 2011 article on the program.

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor

By TINA ROSENBERG

The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world.

Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.

Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners. (see this great series in Slate by Timothy Noah on American inequality) Productivity among low and middle-income American workers increased, but their incomes did not. If current trends continue, the United States may soon be more unequal than Brazil.

Several factors contribute to Brazil’s astounding feat. But a major part of Brazil’s achievement is due to a single social program that is now transforming how countries all over the world help their poor.

<...>

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/to-beat-back-poverty-pay-the-poor/?scp=2&sq=poverty&st=cse

Originally posted here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023877767

[Scuba]

3. Thank you for adding this!

[ProSense]

6. You're welcome. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

4. Top Secret: A decade of dramatic poverty reduction in Venezuela!

Confirmed by the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, which last year designated Venezuela as 'THE most equal country in Latin America" on income distribution, and other entities such as the Millennium Project. Venezuela's Chavez/Maduro government cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by over 70%, and continues to reduce poverty this year as well.

The New York Slimes doesn't want you to know this. They are pursuing a CIA-type "divide and conquer" strategy, to pick out tolerably exploitable economies, like Brazil or Peru, and give them some strokes, because, for one thing, they have few choices: virtually all of South American has gone leftist, some of it way leftist (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, recently Chile). The one U.S. client state, Colombia, has one of the worst rich/poor discrepancies in Latin America, and, with labor union leaders and other advocates of the poor still being murdered there every week and FIVE MILLION brutally displaced peasant farmers (prep for U.S. "free trade for the rich&quot , that would be a bit embarrassing. And they DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW that the far leftist countries--Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, for instance--the ones that are most hostile to Wall Street, have been doing very well, indeed, along with Brazil, and, furthermore--and this is probably crucial--are ALLIED with Brazil in the COMMON CAUSE of leftist/progressive policies throughout the region.

The Economyst, naturally, hates cash payments to poor mothers (one of Brazil's anti-poverty measures), and they and their fellow economystifiers want Brazil's "New Deal"-like policies to fail, for obvious reasons (invasion by U.S. and allied transglobal corporations; massive theft of Brazil's resources; creation of helpless slave labor force). Thus, the Economyst disses Brazil ("the Deterioration&quot (as this article points out). They are so ...raw. But the Slimes are cleverer than that. They know that the leftist ALLIANCE in South America is the more serious "enemy." So they permit publication of an op-ed like this, which...well...helps to "divide and conquer" the leftist alliance, by saying "wait a minute!" about Brazil, while the Slimes COMPLETELY ignore the awesome social and economic progress of the far left countries and can't print enough negative, lying, bullshit, so-called 'news' stories about them.

It's sickening! The "lying liars" who control 'news' in this country! The New York Slimes is one of the worst, and we should never forget it. We should never forget who brought us the war on Iraq. We should never forget who brought us Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld. We should never forget the mass murder, the torture, the massive, truly unbelievable corruption, all brought to us by--or rather covered up by (to this day)--the New York Slimes!

[bvar22]

7. Thank You. This is IMPORTANT!

THIS is the reason WHY Chavez & The Populist Reforms sweeping across South & Central America
is being conspicuously IGNORED by our Media,
and DEMONIZED by the Leadership of BOTH Political Parties.

On THIS, the leadership of the Republicans and Democrats are in full agreement,
and continue to fund the few remaining Right Wing 1% Police State Oligarchies, like Colombia
which is the 3rd largest recipient of US Foreign Aid,
and openly hostile to the Populist Reforms in Venezuela and elsewhere.
The Net Effect of this hostility from the USA is that it drives these emerging markets into the open arms of Russia, China, and Iran.
Those chickens WILL come home to roost.

Unfortunately, too many Americans are willing to blindly follow them in demonizing these transparent democracies that work FOR The People.
You would think that a country like the USA that pays so much Lip Service to the word "democracy" would have more respect for the real thing.
...and too many Americans are willing to follow along without question.
Too many.

What has been accomplished in Latin America is nothing short of near bloodless Ballot Box Revolutions.
They have given us the Blue Print,
and when the American Working Class & Poor realize we have more in common with each other
than we have in common with the 1% and their Mouth Pieces in Washington,
we can have "change" too.

Spread the Word!
Viva Democracy!
I pray we get some here soon.

[Peace Patriot]

8. I agree! It's very important to understand what the corporate media has done to us...

...regarding the awesome democracy revolution in South America!

And WHY they have done it.

They. Don't. Want. Us. To. Know.

They FEAR us, we the people of the U.S. They really do. That's what the corporate-run (and probably, if the truth were known, CIA-run) 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines spread like a plague all over the USA during the 2002 to 2004 period--their latest blockade against reform--are all about: FEAR of who we the people will vote into office. Fear of a new FDR and another "New Deal" to address a whole new set of problems, along with the old ones that have re-emerged. Fear of our good hearts, our skills, our intelligence, in putting together a "common good" government that will stop all this vast, vast looting, and all the attendant horrors, from resource wars to the vast imprisonment of the poor, from drone bombings to torture dungeons around the globe, from "corporate personhood" to bankster boondoggles. We have the ability, and we have the desire, to create peace and justice at home and to become a force for good in the world. The looters and the militarists fear this more than anything, that we will take our country back. And so they lie and lie and lie some more about Latin Americans doing just that, taking their countries back from the transglobal corporations, and the local fascist elites and their tutors in Washington DC, who have ravaged them. If they can do it--if they can establish democracy and fair economies--after what they have suffered, so can we!

Our overseers are determined to hide this from us.

[bvar22]

5. Increased Productivity = Lower Wages for Fewer Workers

That simple.

The only people who want to use this as a metric to measure "The Economy" are the Corporate Owners.

[ronnie624]

9. !