Withdrawal of pandemic welfare fuels poverty in Brazil

The pandemic shantytown sprang up virtually overnight when people began using scavenged wooden boards to build shacks on a plot of empty land in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city. Geovani de Souza and his pregnant wife were among the 200 families who moved in over the last six months amid the economic turmoil caused by COVID-19. “Without a job, I couldn’t pay my rent, was evicted from where I was living and found the solution here,” said de Souza, who now relies on occasional work as a bricklayer. Similar stories abound. The Penha Brasil shantytown’s rapid creation reflects a resurgence in poverty after the government limited socioeconomic turmoil in 2020 with one of the world’s most generous welfare programs. Now that flow of money has been curtailed, leaving vulnerable Brazilians exposed to soaring food prices and a still-worsening job market. And the strain comes at a time when there is no near-term hope of mass vaccination to safeguard the labor force.