PUBLIC POLICIES FOR INCOME DISTRIBUTION AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW BRAZILIAN MIDDLE CLASS?

Abstract

Brazil is a country characterized by great income inequality and to this day remains on the list of countries with the highest inequality. This diagnosis was verified from the 1960s when statistical data were made available and confirmed in 1970 with data from the Demographic Census. However, throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the country showed an improvement in the distribution of functional and personal income. Based on the available data, the objective of this work is to present the public policies of income distribution in Brazil and their influence on the emergence of the new Brazilian middle class, and to inquire whether it can really be considered so, based on theoretical and practical criteria, even in the face of the improvement in income distribution that has occurred.