Brazil's economy plummets in Covid's shadow
CNN
The Covid-19 crisis has claimed over 450,000 lives in Brazil, and wrecked the livelihoods of so many more. Brazilians are facing one of the worst economic recessions in the country's history. Millions remain unemployed, inflation is climbing, countless businesses are going under, and people are going hungry.
"It is the new lost decade, worse than what we had in the 1980s," says Claudio Considera, economist and coordinator of the National Accounts Center at Getulio Vargas Foundation. After several decades of economic prosperity, the oil glut of the 1980s slapped Brazil with soaring foreign debt, a drastically devalued currency and hyperinflation to the tune of over 200%. For the next decade, Brazilians suffered through wage freezes, skyrocketing food prices and empty market shelves.
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