Photo: AP Photo / Eraldo Peres (via EL PAÍS).
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a decree on September 17 increasing Bolsa Família benefits by 15% from October. The minimum monthly payment rises from R$600 to R$691 per family, while the average benefit is projected to reach R$777, according to Planning Minister Bruno Moretti. The government said the adjustment would compensate for inflation since the programme’s previous increase and that spending would be accommodated within existing fiscal rules.
Moretti estimated the measure would cost R$5.8 billion in 2026 and R$22 billion in 2027. He said part of this year’s additional expense would be covered by reductions in social-security spending, with further reallocations planned in the next budget proposal. Finance Minister Dario Durigan said the government would keep its fiscal targets unchanged. These are official estimates and claims about funding; the long-term effect on public accounts depends on execution and the final budget.
The timing is politically salient: the decree was signed fewer than three weeks before the first round of the October 4 presidential election, and the higher payments were due to begin before the expected runoff. Lula was seeking re-election against Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Reuters reported that polling showed a close race and cited shifts in voting intentions among lower-income respondents. The proximity of the payment change to the election is a verifiable fact; it does not by itself prove an electoral motive or establish that the policy was unlawful.
Bolsa Família’s basic R$600 benefit had been maintained since Lula restored the programme in 2023, following the earlier Auxílio Brasil increase under Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. The decree was published in an extra edition of the Official Gazette and did not require congressional approval, according to Reuters.