The COVID-19 pandemic put pressure on the Brazilian Federal Government to prepare a new proposal for payment of emergency aid for the poorest. In 2021, the aid must be paid in three installments of BRL 200.00. The target is informal workers not served by the Bolsa Família assistance program – about 30 million Brazilians who are unemployed and receive no government assistance

The emergency aid will have another name – Productive Inclusion Bonus, as reported in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. To receive the benefit, the person will have to take a professional qualification course, as a way to encourage the insertion of low-income people in the formal job market.

As a government source told the newspaper, the new government proposal is intended to assist vulnerable Brazilians during the crisis caused by the pandemic, and not be an income distribution program like Bolsa Família.

Last year, the payment of BRL 600.00 emergency aid cost BRL 50 billion a month to the Brazilian government and served 64 million people. The new proposal has an estimated cost of BRL 6 billion per month.