The gini index, an index created to measure the degree of income concentration, fell to the lowest historical level in Brazilian metropolises, with 0.534 index in 2024. The indicator, which is based on per capita home performance, measures the degree of distribution of these income among individuals in a population, ranging from zero to one. The closer to 0, the lower the inequality.
The data is part of the Bulletin Inequality in Metropolisproduced in partnership between the National Institute of Science and Technology Observatory of Metropolis, the Laboratory of Inequalities, Poverty and Labor Market of the Pontiff Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and the social debt observatories network in Latin America. According to one of the study coordinators, PUCRS teacher André Salata, two factors contributed more significantly to the result: the increase in income obtained with work and the appreciation of the minimum wage.
“In recent years, we have had a warmer job market, to a large extent recovering from the pandemic, with low vacancy. And also the return of the Royal Valorization policy of the minimum wage, which we know makes a difference mainly in the lower layers,” says the researcher.
“And the country is managing to combine these two factors with the control of inflation. For everyone is improving, but it is improving proportionally more for those at the base of the pyramid,” he adds.
As a result, the increase in income was higher among the poorest 40%, leaving R $ 474 per person in 2021, to R $ 670 in 2024, which is also a record of the historical series. This also helped to decrease the poverty rate in these regions, from 31.1% in 2021 to 23.4% in 2023, reaching 19.4% last year, which means 9.5 million people left the poverty line between 2021 and 2024.
>> Follow the channel of Brazil agency on WhatsApp
On the other hand, although it also fell, The difference between the two extremes of the pyramid is still quite expressive. Last year, the richest 10% had 15.5 times higher than the poorest 40%.
The teacher explains that the coefficient of Gini over 0.5 is already a very high level of inequality, and points out that the poverty rate in the metropolises is almost 20%.
“All of this indicates a social situation that is nothing desirable. So if we look at the picture there is nothing to celebrate. Now, when you look at the movement of recent years, that is, the movie of recent years, then we have reasons to rejoice a little more, and be a little more optimistic, because it is a movement of improvement, poverty reduction, increased average income.” Pondera.
The bulletin brings together data from the 20 metropolitan regions of the country (Manaus, Belém, Macapá, Greater São Luís, Fortaleza, Natal, João Pessoa, Recife, Maceió, Aracaju, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Greater Vitória, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Vale do Rio Cuiabá and Goiânia) and the Greater Administrative Region of Development Teresina.
“More than 40% of the Brazilian population is in the metropolises, which means over 80 million people. And within our metropolitan regions, we find some of the biggest challenges to consolidate citizenship in Brazil, especially for the poorest layers. And when we analyze inequality within these regions, we are talking about that inequality that the resident faces daily” emphasizes salaeta.
