A new analysis finds strong growth, falling unemployment, poverty and hunger during Lula’s third term, alongside high borrowing costs and mounting household financial pressures.
An analysis released Wednesday documents some of the major economic gains that Brazil has made over the past four years during the third term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in a close battle for re-election against rival Flávio Bolsonaro.
The analysis, published by the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), finds that, between 2022 and 2025, the Brazilian economy grew by a cumulative 8.9 per cent, easily outpacing the average rate of growth in other South American countries.
This growth has been coupled with a drop in the unemployment rate, which has fallen from more than 9 per cent in the second quarter of 2022 to just 5.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2026.
Both poverty and food insecurity fell dramatically in the first two years of Lula’s term, the analysis finds, and in 2025, “Brazil was removed from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map after chronic undernourishment fell below 2.5 per cent”.
CEPR’s report also gives credit to Lula’s policies for improved economic conditions, including a new minimum wage law, an expanded maternity leave program, and increased average payments to low-income families given through the Bolsa Família program.
The economy during Lula’s term is far from perfect, however, and the report flags high interest rates set by Brazil’s central bank as a key factor in raising consumers’ borrowing costs and increasing the rate of household delinquency.
CEPR also noted the negative impact of online betting apps, which Lula has pledged to ban starting next month, on Brazilian workers.
“Brazilian households lost an estimated R$62.5 billion (US$11.2 billion) to online betting in 2025,” the report says, “while some 802,000 Bolsa Família households spent more than 2 per cent of their income on betting in January 2025.”
Jake Johnston, CEPR’s director of international research, said that “the past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living”.
“This was done,” Johnston added, “despite the lingering impact of the Covid pandemic, external economic shocks that affected the global economy, and excessively high interest rates.”
The first round of Brazil’s presidential election is set to take place on Sunday, and recent polls show Lula with a narrow lead over Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who is still serving a criminal sentence for efforts to instigate a coup after his loss in the 2022 election.
Republished from Common Dreams
Brad Reed
Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.