Government targets business leaders with online ads about welfare programs

The Bolsonaro administration spent taxpayer money on online advertising targeted at business executives to promote, among other measures, the emergency salary paid to informal workers who lost their income during the acute phases of the pandemic. The ads appear on LinkedIn and also showcase the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines and Covid-relief economic policies.

According to public documents obtained by Fiquem Sabendo, a freedom of information non-profit, the ads cost BRL 46,200 (USD 8,545) just to be promoted. Since January of 2020, the Citizenship Ministry has spent BRL 4.7 million on online ads – campaigns linked to the emergency salary program amount to 26 percent of the total. Although the government paid out the benefit payments in 2020 and 2021, 82 percent of its total BRL 357 billion budget was spent last year. Still, all ads hailing the welfare program are from 2021, with most of them published in July. 

Coincidently (or not), ads targeting business leaders appeared at the end of June, two weeks after one pollster recorded a 49-percent disapproval rate for the Jair Bolsonaro administration among upper-class respondents.

• #polls
• #poverty