Every big country is full of contradictions, this fact seems to be a rule. Here in Brazil it could not be different. According to the IPEA (Institute of Applied Economic Research), the inequality of income between the poorest and the richest decreased in the last six years.

This is a fact that should be celebrated, because the wages of workers who have less income increased by four times (21.96%) compared to the wages of workers in higher income (4.91%). The explanation given for this occurrence is that the minimum wage increased their purchasing power in the recent years through annual adjustments made by the current federal administration.

But there is another factor that can not be ignored and that was also recorded by the same Institute. The poorest people in Brazil pay 44.5% more taxes than the 10% richest. The total amount of taxes that the poorest families pay representing 32.8% of their income, while for the richest, the tax burden represents 22.7% .

But why there is this difference? The explanation lies in taxation, or in the way taxes are collected. The taxation may be directly or indirectly. In Brazil, the richest pay more to direct taxation, through the Income Tax, for example. Meanwhile the poorest pay the indirect, focuses on basic products for their survival, like food.

What we can conclude about this data then? The lives of millions of Brazilians have indeed improved, but inequality persists, however disguised. That is the hidden face of an economic policy that favors the rich, which owns 75% of the wealth of the country. The economic populism of the current administration says is always in favour of the less privileged, but in practice, what you see is the permanence of inequality.