Revenue rises for the primary time in 12 months, however nonetheless decrease than earlier than the pandemic

The average income from work in 22 metropolitan regions improved for the first time in 12 months, reaching R$ 1,518.35 in the second quarter of 2022. The value represents an increase of 4.8% compared to the first quarter of the year and is the biggest increase in the indicator since the beginning of the pandemic. The information was obtained exclusively by the UOL.

The data are part of the tenth edition of the Inequality in Metrópoles Bulletin, produced in partnership between Observatório das Metrópoles, of the National Institute of Science and Technology, the Laboratory of Inequalities, Poverty and Labor Market at PUC of Rio Grande do Sul, and the Network of Social Debt Observatories in Latin America.

What does this data mean? “The bulletin marks the end of a cycle, which does not mean that we have returned to the same conditions we had before the pandemic”, says André Salata, a researcher at PUC-RS and one of the study coordinators.

That’s because income has not yet returned to pre-covid levels. The amount is 6.5% lower than that recorded at the beginning of 2020, when income was R$1,623.67.

How were the poorest? Income recovery was greater among the poorest. In this segment of the population, income from work in the second quarter of 2022 was R$250.64, just below the level before the pandemic, which was R$251.75. However, Salata warns that the situation of the poorest remains worrying. The group of the poorest 40% has been losing purchasing power since 2014, when their income reached R$324.56.

According to the researcher, the poorest slice of the population had an abrupt loss of income at the beginning of the pandemic and has been slowly recovering since then. However, more recently, losses have become greater among the richest 10%, whose income today is still 10% lower than in the period before the pandemic.

What happened to inequality? For this reason, social inequality in metropolitan regions has decreased. The Gini index (which measures inequality so that the higher the index, the greater the inequality) stood at 0.615 in the quarter, a significant drop from the height of the pandemic, when it reached 0.661. This reduction, however, comes in the wake of a loss of income for the richest. “We have returned to a level of inequality similar to what we had before the pandemic, but at the expense of a reduction in the level of income”, says Salata.

The increase in income is due to two main factors: the increase in occupation, whether formal or informal, and the fall in inflation – the study takes into account the population’s real income and purchasing power. However, the continuation of the improvement in the indicator depends on some other factors, says the researcher. Among the points highlighted by him are the government’s ability to encourage economic activity, with investments in infrastructure and job creation, and the resumption of the policy of real recovery of the minimum wage.

Data from the Boletim Inequaldade nas Metrópoles consider the per capita household income from work, whether formal or informal, in the 22 metropolitan regions of the country. That is, in a family of two working adults and two children, the total income is divided by four. The account does not consider other sources of income, such as government aid and retirement, for example. The study uses information from the quarterly Continuous PNAD, from IBGE.

Below is the average income from work in the country’s 22 metropolitan regions in the second quarter of 2022 (four-quarter moving average):

Manaus: BRL 912.05

Belém: BRL 1,156.51

Macapá: BRL 1,025.11

Greater São Luís: BRL 832.58

Teresina: BRL 962.21

Fortaleza: BRL 1,019.87

Christmas: BRL 1,093.18

João Pessoa: BRL 957.50

Recife: BRL 849.24

Maceió: BRL 939.09

Aracaju: BRL 1,154.25

Salvador: BRL 1,071.40

Belo Horizonte: BRL 1,517.73

Greater Vitória: BRL 1,434.93

Rio de Janeiro: BRL 1,542.05

São Paulo: BRL 1,822.81

Curitiba: BRL 1,693.36

Florianópolis: BRL 1,999.19

Porto Alegre: BRL 1,595.06

Cuiabá River Valley: BRL 1,296.17

Goiânia: BRL 1,453.33

Federal District: BRL 2,131.77

Source: Uol