R$ 691. That is the new floor of Bolsa Família, Brazil's main cash-transfer program, starting in October, according to the Planning Ministry. Families on the minimum payment will get R$ 91 more per month, a 15% increase, and the average benefit will rise from R$ 675 to R$ 777, an extra R$ 102 for the household budget, also 15%.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the raise last week, in the middle of his re-election campaign, and on Thursday (24) his economic team wrote it into the 2026 budget. The change appears in the fourth bimonthly revenue and spending report released by the Planning Ministry. According to news site G1, the raise costs R$ 5.8 billion this year, about one third of the R$ 16.1 billion that remains frozen in the budget.
A bigger deficit
To make room for the new spending, the government raised its estimate for this year's deficit from R$ 52 billion to R$ 67.3 billion, or from 0.38% to 0.49% of GDP, G1 reported. That R$ 15.3 billion jump alone is more than twice the cost of the Bolsa Família raise in 2026. The estimate now sits at the limit allowed by Brazil's fiscal framework.
In short: the fiscal framework is the rule approved in 2023 that caps the growth of public spending. This year's target is a primary surplus, money left over before debt interest payments, of 0.25% of GDP, about R$ 34.3 billion, but the rule allows a 0.25 point tolerance band that accepts a zero result. G1 also reports that up to R$ 67.3 billion in spending on precatórios, court-ordered federal debt payments, and other expenses can be excluded from the calculation.
Freezes and releases
Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reports that the freeze on ministry funds fell from R$ 17.9 billion to R$ 16.1 billion. The government released R$ 15.5 billion because it now expects lower spending on pensions, payroll and the BPC, a benefit paid to poor elderly and disabled Brazilians. At the same time, the economic team ordered its first spending holdback of the year, R$ 13.6 billion, because the primary balance projection swung from a R$ 10.8 billion surplus to a R$ 13.6 billion deficit.
The report also points to a theoretical release of R$ 1.9 billion for the ministries, but Planning Minister Bruno Moretti said the money will not go out for now. Folha adds that the adjustment offsets weak revenue, including a dividend tax that collected far less than the nearly R$ 29 billion promised, a gap already flagged by the TCU, the federal audit court, plus R$ 3.9 billion less in dividends from state-owned companies.
"For now, I will not release it. I will examine the requests from the agencies. It is prudent that we keep a margin. (...) The funds will be released if there is a need to do so," Moretti said.