Pobreza no Brasil. O que há de novo no limiar do século XXI?

The persistence of absolute poverty in Brazil is associated with high levels of income inequality. For this article, this association is the departing point for presenting a schematic evolution of poverty in Brazil in the last three decades: a sharp decline in the seventies as income grew at high rates; fluctuations of poverty incidence following the short-term economic trends in the eighties and early nineties; finally the reduction after the 1994 Real Plan, which brought poverty incidence to a level where it has stabilized in the 1995/1999 period. This stability of poverty incidence for the country as a whole encompasses quite different local situations, for instance, deterioration in metropolises, specially São Paulo. Metropolitan labor market indicators for the last five years show a sharp decline of the number of jobs for the least qualified workers, which has the effect of adversely affecting poverty and inequality.