Upper Class Income In Brazil

Data for brazil upper middle income from the world bank.

Upper class income in brazil. This resemblance can initially be grasped from figure 1 below adapted from milanovic 2011. Composed of people who earn minimum salaries such as cleaners street sweepers and also unemployed people distribution across social classes the well known brazilian statistics firm ibope inteligência published in early 2015 an economic classification of the brazilian population. Brazil labels its social classes with the letters a through e. Brazil social classes.

Wages in brazil averaged 2320 71 brl month from 2012 until 2020 reaching an all time high of 2535 brl month in july of 2020 and a record low of 2218 brl month in march of 2012. 14 this contrasts with hirschman s assessment in the 1970s when he predicted that brazil s rising inequality had reached its limits leading to socio political disasters. The upper class is classe a. Class c average income of 2 040 brazilian real or more per month or approximately 650 us dollars.

Thus brazil followed a similar tendency to other western countries in which the middle classes lost ground among other reasons due to the rise of asia and its industrial production based on cheap labour. Brazil constitutes a useful example to discuss an income based middle class on a global perspective because the brazilian income distribution is relatively close to the world income distribution. The upper class corresponds to the 5 of the brazilian population that earns more than 18 times the minimum salary a month. Brazil inherited a highly stratified society from the colonial system and from slavery which persisted for nearly three generations after independence in 1822.

It is therefore not surprising that analysts would use group b as the actual upper or global middle class whose minimum income is us 2000 and more. In brazil the middle class participation in the income fell from 33 1 per cent to 30 6 per cent between 2001 and 2015. The figure compares world income. According to ibge s criteria a person earning us 3 500 at the current exchange rate is not upper class.

The minimum monthly income to be in classe a according to ibge s criteria for 2016 is r 17 600. Wages in brazil increased to 2535 brl month in july from 2502 brl month in june of 2020.