The impact of COVID-19 on Brazil’s precarious labour market calls for far-reaching policies like universal basic income

Brazil’s coronavirus crisis is also an economic crisis that both reveals and deepens historical inequalities. Given the country’s high levels of informality, guaranteeing the income of vulnerable workers is an essential step in tackling the pandemic and its economic effects. In this context, the idea of a universal basic income has resurfaced as a public policy that has the potential to promote inclusion and an expansion of citizenship, write Mara Nogueira (Birkbeck, University of London), Aiko Ikemura Amaral (LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre) and Gareth A. Jones (LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre) as part of a series of blogs linked to their British Academy-funded project Engineering Food: infrastructure exclusion and ‘last mile’ delivery in Brazilian favelas.