Social protection and people with disabilities in Brazil

Abstract

The article analyzes the social protection policy for people with disabilities in Brazil. It describes the patterns of demand and eligibility for Continued Benefit of Social Assistance (Benefício de Prestação Continuada – BPC) in the 1996-2014 period. The article argues that BPC is a direct result of the social pact achieved by the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988. BPC is a social assistance benefit consisting in an unconditional and monthly transference of the equivalent of a minimum wage, to poor people with deficiency and elders with more than 65 years. Disabled person eligibility depends on means-test, and social and medical evaluation by public bureaucracy. The research strategy was based on time series, and cross-sectional data collection and analysis. Dummy qualitative variables were also used to describe the pattern of demand and eligibility. The article demonstrates that BPC has provided income to disabled and elder people. However, systematic barriers were identified to disabled people’s access to BPC. The work suggests that the pattern of refusal could be associated to a means testing application by street-level-bureaucracy. In this sense, the work draws attention to the necessary revision of street-level-bureaucracy tools and procedures to increase BPC positive discrimination.

Social policy; Disabled people; Street-level-bureaucracy; Access; Judicial litigation