Brazilians thrown back into poverty as COVID aid dries up

That nearly $60bn burst of basic income softened the economic blow of the coronavirus pandemic, boosted President Jair Bolsonaro’s popularity and beat back poverty — but its expiration at the end of 2020 is unravelling many of those effects.

Tatiana Araujo de Sirqueira, a 33-year-old single mother of six, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are almost neighbours, but they inhabit different universes. Sirqueira lives by a landfill less than a mile from the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, along with 36 other families, and scrapes together cash by recycling trash. She is one of Brazil’s 40 million or so “invisibles”, a term coined by Economy Minister Paulo Guedes for those without formal employment who have flown largely under the radar of Brazil’s government — and society.