Brazil's Rousseff says extreme poverty almost eradicated
Brazil's Rousseff says extreme poverty almost eradicated
Anthony Boadle Reuters
2:57 p.m. EST, February 19, 2013
BRASILIA (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday raised the monthly stipend of 2.5 million people living below the poverty line to make good on her promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Brazil, a nation with enormous income gaps between rich and poor.
She said she has almost met her anti-poverty target halfway through her four-year term, though Brazil's last census points to 700,000 Brazilian families who still live in extreme poverty but are not registered on government social programs.
Success in the war on poverty would garner useful political capital for a possible re-election bid by Rousseff in 2014 and compensate on the welfare front for her failure to deliver strong economic growth.
With a stroke of her pen, Rousseff raised monthly stipends for the remaining 2.5 million people known to be living below the poverty line, raising their income to 70 reais ($35) a month through the so-called Bolsa Familia, or Family Grant program, the country's flagship social program for the past decade.
"We are turning the page on our long history of social exclusion that had perverse roots in slavery," Rousseff said after signing the decree authorizing the increase, which will go into effect on March 18.
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