Ften days before the first round of the 2006 elections, the Center for Social Policies of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) announced that the period 2003-2005 recorded the biggest drop in the level of poverty in Brazil in ten years. The study entitled Misery, inequality and stability: The second Real was based on 2005 data from the IBGE National Household Sampling Survey (Pnad). The news, reported by the media, became highlighted on several political campaign websites, such as the PT National Directory, the candidate for governor Olívio do Dutra and the candidate for federal deputy and former Minister of Finance Antonio Palocci.

Professor sees no factors for 8,28% jump in total income

According to the FGV study, poverty, which affected 28,2% of the Brazilian population in 2003, fell significantly to 22,7% in 2005. The research coordinator, Marcelo Néri, explained this reduction in poverty with factors such as the real adjustment of the minimum wage, the resumption of job offers, income redistribution programs and the expansion of social security spending. The comparison with the Real Plan, suggested in the title of the study, is due to the fact that, between 1993 and 1995, the poverty rate was reduced from 35,3% to 28,8%. According to Néri's calculations, from 1993 to now, Brazil has already reached the “millennium goal” of reducing poverty by half, which was only scheduled for 2015.

The surprising data from 2005 led analysts to adopt the term “Chinese PNAD”, in reference to the emerging eastern power where 300 million people are emerging from extreme poverty. However, although this Pnad effectively supports such analyses, professor Waldir José de Quadros, from the Institute of Economics (IE) at Unicamp, remains cautious. Retired as a teacher, but fully active as a researcher at the Center for Trade Union and Labor Economic Studies (Cesit), he waited for the elections to pass to point out some indices that he finds intriguing.

The 2005 survey shows an astonishing jump of 8,28% in the total income captured by Pnad, when GDP grew just 2,28%. If we look at the numbers from previous years, we will always see a certain relationship between total income and GDP variation – as in 2004, when PNAD income increased by 4,57% and gross domestic product increased by 4,94%. Where does this income that goes to people come from, if not from GDP? For me, this increase in income of more than 8% is difficult to understand, unlike what happens in China, where GDP has grown by 10% a year”, compares the professor.

In the opinion of the Cesit researcher, the government may have taxed and transferred a lot of income last year, but not to this magnitude. “The year 2005 presented some positive effects that would partly explain this increase in total income, such as the readjustment of the minimum wage of 8,5% above inflation, collective bargaining agreements – which in the strongest categories resulted in real increases in salaries of 1,5%, 2% and even 2,5% –, the certain growth in the number of jobs in the formal market, in addition to the small but positive evolution of GDP. But, in my opinion, it is very complicated to explain the magnitude of the increase in total income due to this set of factors. Frankly, I can’t understand it,” he argues.

Likewise, Waldir Quadros draws attention to the fact that the average income of all declarants grew by 5,16% in 2005, a rate completely out of line with recent years: + 0,57% in 2001, – 3,15% in 2002, – 7,40% in 2003 and + 0,83% in 2004. “The same question then arises: where does this come from?”, he asks.

The researcher remembers that Pnad has repercussions on numerous analyzes of the social and economic scenario and, therefore, fears the possibility of some inconsistency in the research methodology, although IBGE denies that it has promoted any change in this regard (read text on page). “These data and the scenario they point out fit like a glove for those who argue that the country does not need to grow to reduce inequality, in other words, the opposite of what we preach.”

Social scale – Waldir Quadros is the author of a methodology that made it possible to clearly portray, for example, the great fall that the middle class took on the social ladder in recent years – the subject of recent articles in Jornal da Unicamp. In his studies, the Cesit researcher finds a reduction in the proportion of poor people in the country that is even more significant than that announced by FGV, and greater not only in relation to the Real Plan, but also the 1986 Cruzado Plan, which contextualizes his astonishment with the 2005 scenario over a period of two decades.

“These Pnad numbers reflect an improvement never seen before in relation to the poverty-stricken population, greater than what happened in Cruzado, when there was a freeze, an abrupt drop in inflation and an increase in income also due to an 8% minimum wage bonus. In that period, in 1986, the average income, which was 700 reais [converted and deflated Cruzados] exploded to 1.250, although it is true that everything fell apart afterwards”, points out Waldir Quadros.

It is this totally atypical behavior that leads the professor to find the situation strange and to now be willing to dissect the Pnad data, transporting them to his methodology. “We are going to do all the mapping that the Pnad allows, but I don't know if I will have explanations for this fantastic increase in income in 2005. In any case, we are going to prepare to analyze the Pnad of 2006, when the minimum wage adjustment was greater and inflation was low.”

IBGE denies changes to methodology

There were no changes to the methodology of the 2005 National Household Sampling Survey (Pnad), according to consultant Vanderli dos Santos Guerra, from the Work and Income Coordination (Coren) – subordinate to the IBGE Research Directorate. Vanderli is one of those responsible for the text and analysis of the document about Pnad available on the IBGE website. According to the report, in 2005, the level of inflation was lower than in the previous year and there was growth in important segments of the economy, although some adverse factors affected the agroindustry sector. Also according to the document, in the distribution of work remuneration, there was real growth in all segments. Coren says in the report that a factor that positively influenced the increase in income in the lower half of income distributions from all sources of work was the real increase of 9,9% in the minimum wage, according to the agency's calculation. The slightly larger increase in this lower half caused a small drop in the concentration of wages, contributing to the slow downward trend in the concentration of earnings. The document attests that although the real average remuneration of people with income from work in 2005 showed a real gain in relation to the previous one, it still had a real loss of 15,1% in relation to this income in 1996, the year in which it reached its highest point since the beginning of the 1990s.