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 high income inequality despite high rates of economic growth. The country's richest 1% of the population (less than 2 million Brazilians) have 13% of all household income, a similar economic result to that of the poorest 50% (about 80 million Brazilians). This inequality results in poverty levels that are inconsistent with an economy the size of that of Brazil.^[1] The country's GDP growth in 2010 was 7.5%.^[2] In recent decades, there has been a modest 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.^[3] However, the numbers still point to a rather significant problem of income disparity.