Good morning! Today, we talk about the drop in Brazil’s poverty rates. The privatization of Sabesp moves forward. And the risks pesticides pose to plant-based foodstuffs.
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Brazil’s poverty rate drops after pandemic spike
Thanks to the recovery of the job market and the expansion of social programs that followed the pandemic downturn, Brazil’s poverty rates dropped in 2022, according to new data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Why it matters. The decrease corresponds to 10.2 million Brazilians lifting themselves out of poverty. That is roughly equivalent to the entire population of Portugal.
- The extreme poverty rate has also dropped, from 9 to 5.9 percent. At the end of last year, 19.1 million people were living on less than USD 2.15 per day — 6.5 million fewer than a year prior.
Shifting lines. The IBGE raised its poverty threshold to meet World Bank standards — which gives a huge discrepancy between what the poverty rate would look like if the line was set at USD 5.50 per day,...