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The Government excluded participants with inconsistencies. Lately, the Bolsa Família program has been striving to eliminate any acts of bad faith and improper payments. Thus, the Federal Government tracked down inappropriate payments in Brazil’s most important resource distribution program.
As of last month, in July, the program had excluded approximately 934,000 families claiming to consist of a single individual. In other words, these are families with only one member.
This group grew significantly during the distribution phase of Auxílio Brasil, an initiative of the previous administration. During this period, specifically, this segment quickly increased from 15% to 27%, strongly suggesting the likelihood of misconduct.
As an initial action, in April of this year, the Federal Government temporarily suspended payments to nearly one million individual participants. In addition, the government asked these individuals to provide proof of their situation.
Individuals who did not provide such proof and did not meet the guidelines of the Ministry of Social Development were removed from Bolsa Família.
In this way, a new audit stage is expected to begin this August. Thus, it is likely that there will be more exclusions of people who do not meet the requirements to join the income distribution program.
Understand the Bolsa Família verification process
Read also: Bolsa Família Withdrawal Without Documents Shocks Brazilians
The suspension of Bolsa Família payments has focused on those individuals who, when registering, indicated that they lived alone.
Under former President Jair Bolsonaro, this group showed a notable increase, rising from 2.2 million to 5.9 million.
In this context, the expansion of self-declared single-person households also caused the incidence of improper Auxílio Brasil payments to grow. This happened because the benefit amount did not distinguish between family sizes, providing the same amount to both a single-person household and larger families.
At that time, the Federal Government's assistance program faced criticism from several economic and social experts because of its structure. This criticism arose because this arrangement intensified the differences among the beneficiaries themselves.
The configuration of Auxílio Brasil led to the fragmentation of several families so they could receive more than one installment of the social benefit. As a result, this led to a marked increase in the number of families considered single-person households.
The peaks occurred in December 2021, when the government began distributing the minimum amount of R$ 400, and in July 2022, when this amount rose to R$ 600 after Congress approved a PEC.
Nowadays, Bolsa Família has 24% of its beneficiaries as individual family units. This percentage is lower than in 2022, but it is still considerably higher than before the implementation of Auxílio Brasil.
How are the exclusions carried out?
With increased oversight, the administration of the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, introduced new criteria for reviewing the information in individual records.
Thus, in April, the Federal Government provisionally blocked 1.2 million program participants. It also requested that they update their records.
As early as June, stricter rules were established for registering this group. Now, the cities responsible for registration must verify, through other databases, whether the applicant actually belongs to a single-person household.
“Many still register as single-member households even though they live with other relatives. This allows people from the same family to receive more than one benefit, while others receive none. As a result, social programs do not reach those who truly need them,” instructed the Ministry of Social Development in a June technical note, the agency responsible for the benefit.
If there is uncertainty about the applicant’s circumstances, the agency arranges a visit to their home to verify the truth.
“The person may receive a visit from supervisory agencies, including the Federal Supervision Network for Bolsa Família and Cadastro Único, and be held accountable if they provide incorrect information“, the agency emphasized in a statement.
Read also: Restructuring of Bolsa Família? Understand the changes with the current MP
Bolsa Família payment schedule for August
According to the official Bolsa Família calendar, announced by the Ministry of Social Development together with Caixa Econômica Federal, the new installments will begin on the 18th of this month and continue through August 31.
Therefore, the deposits were organized as follows:
- August 18: NIS ending in 1;
- August 21: NIS ending in 2;
- August 22: NIS ending in 3;
- August 23: NIS ending in 4;
- August 24: NIS ending in 5;
- August 25: NIS ending in 6;
- August 28: NIS ending in 7;
- August 29: NIS ending in 8;
- August 30: NIS ending in 9;
- August 31: NIS ending in 0.
The installments of this resource distribution program maintain the original pattern, meaning they begin during the last ten business days of each month, following the sequence of each person's Social Identification Number (NIS).
In addition to the R$ 600, which is the program's minimum amount, the Federal Government also offers the following additional benefits:
- R$ 150: for families with children aged 0 to 6;
- R$ 50: an additional amount for families with children and adolescents between 7 and 18 years old, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.
Therefore, the intention is for the Bolsa Família amount to be adjusted according to the size of the family, aiming to ensure a more equitable distribution.
Furthermore, it is crucial that beneficiaries are aware of the conditions. These are requirements that the individual must meet to remain in the program, such as:
- School attendance;
- Immunization;
- Monitoring of children and pregnant women.
Consequently, it is essential that beneficiaries stay informed about the latest updates
