A generalized salary increase for civil servants generates inflation, indebtedness and high interest rates, said today (17) the Economy Minister, Paulo Guedes. In a presentation of the portfolio’s year-end balance sheet, he stated that the indiscriminate granting of adjustments sabotages future generations by increasing the public debt.
“If everyone gets these raises, it will be a disgrace to future generations. That’s where we go [ver]: inflation will come back, we’ll dive into the past. We’re going to snowball debt again. Interest rates are going to rise, inflation will not have had a temporary high, it will be a permanent high”, declared the minister.
The declaration comes a day after the Ministry of Economy sent the National Congress an official letter requesting the opening of BRL 2.5 billion in the 2022 Budget for the granting raises for some categories of servers. In the document, the folder also asks for R$ 355 million in issuance of government bonds to finance the increase in the Union’s contribution to the social security of these employees.
The letter does not mention which categories of civil servants would benefit from the readjustment. However, President Jair Bolsonaro promised this week, increases for federal police, federal highway police and prison officers in 2022.
In the presentation this Friday, Guedes did not detail which categories will benefit from the increase. I just said that several categories of federal, state and municipal civil servants have asked for adjustments. “Brazil will plunge into a known and dark past [se todos os pedidos de aumento forem concedidos]. Our role is to ensure that this does not happen”, said the minister.
“We got into debt a little more and transferred resources to states and municipalities, in addition to doing what they don’t seem to want to do. We’ve barely got up, and it’s full of states and municipalities and categories asking for a pay rise again,” added Guedes.
According to the minister, the requests for increase represent a “dishonor” with future generations, because of the increase in public debt, and with current generations, in a scenario in which the private sector is still recreating jobs, mostly with salaries lower than before the covid-19 pandemic. Guedes highlighted that the freeze on civil servants’ remuneration, which took effect between June of last year and December of this year, was necessary to increase health spending over the years of the pandemic.
“We are creating jobs, with the average salary a little lower because the economy has not yet recovered its level, and there are already people wanting to dishonor their commitment to contemporaries saying: ‘look, I’ve already had my vaccine, give me my raise here now back’”, commented the minister.
Recovery
During the year-end presentation, the minister repeated that the economic recovery is over and that the country is in the same situation as before the covid-19 pandemic. According to Guedes, 2021 was the year in which the country “returned” after facing fears of mass unemployment, hunger and recording hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the pandemic.
“In 2020, this shadow cast us into darkness, the disease was standing, threatening, strong, and Brazil on the ground, Brazil fell. If I had to make a synthesis of 2021, I would say that Brazil got back on its feet, and the disease fell. We carried out mass vaccinations of the Brazilian population, we once again surprised the world with the functioning of our democracy”, highlighted the minister. Guedes said the deaths are at the lowest daily average since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Brazil is on its feet because the economy is as it was on the day the disease arrived,” commented the minister. According to him, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the sum of goods and services produced in the country) and unemployment are at levels similar to those registered before the pandemic.
