Income inequality in Brazil

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this to reflect recent events or newly available information. (December 2018)

Brazil has been tackling problems of income inequality despite high rates of growth. Its GDP growth in 2010 was 7.5%.^[1] In recent decades, there has been a decline in inequality for the country as a whole. Brazil's GINI coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has slowly decreased from 0.596 in 2001 to 0.543 in 2009.^[2] However, the numbers still point to a rather significant problem of income disparity.

The country's high income concentration is depicted by the richest one per cent of the population (less than 2 million people) having 13 percent of all household income. This percentage is similar to that of the poorest 50 per cent - about 80 million Brazilians. This inequality results in poverty levels that are inconsistent with an economy the size of that of Brazil.^[3]