WEBVTT - Brazil: The Cautionary Tale 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.760 This is a podcast about money and inequality, but I've 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.440 been thinking about earthquakes a lot lately. I found these 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.720 videos on YouTube. The footage is grainy. It's usually coming 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.160 from a surveillance camera or one of those spy camps 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.200 people used to keep an eye on their pets while 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.680 they're out. At first, nothing's happening. You see a nondescript 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.040 office or living room, sometimes inside of a store, and 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.080 then a dog jolts into the frame or jumps up 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.680 from somewhere you didn't notice he was lying. He starts sparking, 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.839 then darting around, seemingly away from whatever danger he senses, 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.800 but also maybe towards it. To the viewer. At first, 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.520 it's funny because it looks like he's trying to scare 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:04.040 the wind. But then a few seconds later, everything in 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:12.520 the room starts moving, televisions fall over, lamps, wobble, painting, swim. 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.880 But the dogs are reacting to our pea waves, the 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:21.120 earliest signs of an earthquake. Humans can't hear them. Sometimes 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.240 we feel them as a jolt, but they sound an 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.080 alarming signal to dogs and some other animals up to 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.039 a minute or two before the bigger waves come and 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:36.560 the damage begins. There's another thing I learned about earthquakes. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.360 The fault lines, the cracks in the earth whose movement 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.920 caused the shaking. Each one has an upper limit to 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.760 its potency, determined by its length and depth. In other words, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.960 the existing fractures are what determined how bad the event 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.720 will ultimately be. The pandemic, in so many ways, has 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.720 felt like an earthquake to me. It was an event 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:06.760 that we all felt, but not equally. There were existing 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.239 fault lines. Some economies had programs that people could depend 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.960 on when their jobs suddenly disappeared because of lockdowns. Others didn't. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.760 Some health care systems were already dealing with doctor and 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.120 nurse shortages going into a pandemic that would sap the 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.440 last bit of their resources. Others didn't. And in some 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.480 countries workers had few protections like paid time off if 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.600 they caught the virus, others didn't. As soon as the 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.160 impact hit in early we knew where those fault lines 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:43.520 were and saw the damage immediately and death's, job losses 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:47.920 and so many other ways. And it's only now that 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.520 some of the dust from the initial hit has settled 0:02:51.200 --> 0:03:02.919 that we're able to see what we're left with Jovis 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.880 claims coming in, I mean really jumping from the week 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.079 before pretty brutal. Three point to a million records. Six 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.880 point six million Americans filed for unemployment last week. Many 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.959 Brazilians lost their jobs during lockdowns. While prices for rent, food, 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.959 and gas are on the rise, engine working women were 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.520 the worst impacted by the pandemic. Well now to the 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:29.160 billionaire boom. According to Bloomberg's super yacht charters are up. 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.919 Over three hundred and a billionaire was created every twenty 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.240 six hours during this pandemic. No, I'm not waiting in 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.880 line for a COVID test with the public. The gross 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:48.960 in his time for a wealth tax in America. Welcome 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.080 to the paycheck. I'm Rebecca Greenfield. It's not often that 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.240 a crisis heads the entire world. The effects of war 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.240 and famine and natural disasters canry far and wide. COVID 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.600 was different because it happened everywhere. But over the last 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.240 two years we've seen how a million different variables, or 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:15.200 those fault lines, determined our health, safety, and economic security. 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.320 People with the fewest resources were more likely to die, 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.000 especially in the earliest waves, and then poorer countries had 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:27.120 less access to life saving vaccines. Then there were the 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.480 economic disparities. Millions of people are at risk of hunger 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.279 because of the COVID nineteen pandemic. Even in the US 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.560 and Europe, more and more individuals are relying on food 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.360 handouts just to get by. With unemployment levels sloring, international 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:47.560 organizations expect the income gap between the richest and the 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.719 poorest to get even wider. The fear early on in 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.039 the pandemic was that we'd come out of this crisis 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:58.120 worse off. It felt almost inevitable. But that's not exactly 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.679 how things played out over the last few years. In fact, 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.160 what happened varied widely depending on how governments and society 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.720 has stepped in to address the crisis and what kinds 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.040 of foundations they had. Going in over the next eight weeks, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.720 we're going to seven different countries to see how this 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.520 world changing event shifted the balance between the very richest 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.719 and the very poorest and everyone in between. Even before 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:26.279 the pandemic, alarm bells had been going off about global inequality. 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.400 Places with greater relative equality are more stable, They provide 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.600 people with economic security and more mobility to better their lives, 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.400 and going into the pandemic. Some of the most equal 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.080 places in the world, like the US and European countries, 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.719 we're moving in the wrong direction. So when COVID rattled 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.840 the global economy, economists and policymakers were worried about what 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:55.279 might happen. So it happened. I decided to ask Ben 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.120 Steve Verman. He's a reporter at Bloomberg who covers wealth inequality, 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.280 spending his days deepen data and talking with experts and economists. 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.440 He's been keeping a close eye unwealth inequality during the pandemic. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.720 Right before the pandemic hit. What direction was wealth inequality 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.800 headed in globally coming into the pandemic. There were several 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.039 trends that we were watching. There were a few positive trends. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.960 There was a growth of the middle class in Asian countries, 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:33.000 especially China that overall reduced inequality worldwide. And then you 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.320 had the number of people living in extreme poverty had 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.279 actually fallen. So those were positive trends, but there was 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.560 some concern that they were running out of steam, and 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.120 we had these negative trends that we're making inequality worse. 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.240 In the developed countries like the United States, middle class 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.640 was not doing as well and then you also had 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.840 not just the top one percent. Really it's the top 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:58.000 point one percent or point one percent. The people the 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.440 very top were doing much better than every one else. 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.440 And really there was a lot of concern about the 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.360 amount of power and wealth that folks at the top had. 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.640 So we were wondering would those trends continue, And there 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.679 was a lot of pessimism that basically a recession would 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.000 come along and it would hurt the middle class and 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.720 the wealthy would benefit. Okay, so then March economy is 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:26.840 basically shut down entirely. It sounds like economists and politicians 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.720 and policymakers they would all think it's definitely gonna get worse. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.000 There was a lot of pessimism at that early moment 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.520 in in the pandemic, and I ended up writing about 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.720 this and researching some of the history, and what I 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.800 found was that when you have these major disruptions, if 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.720 you look at past pandemics, for example, inequality doesn't always 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.320 get worse. Sometimes it gets better. Sometimes these disruptions either 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.200 they can destroy a lot of wealth at the top 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.800 and then allow people at the bottom to rise up. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.560 Or it can change the labor market, it can change 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.480 the financial market in these really surprising ways. So I 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.560 didn't think at that moment we really knew what was 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.760 going to happen. We were really entering into an unpredictable situation. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:15.600 So of those two potential scenarios, thanks getting worse or 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.000 something surprising happening, what ended up happening. We're only just 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.960 starting to get the data to answer that question. What 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.080 we do know from the last two years is that 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.120 the billionaires and the top one percent have done very 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.520 very well. The world's five richest people gained about one 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.920 point seven trillion dollars over a couple of years. If 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.760 you just look at Elon Musk, for example, there was 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.160 a moment after he became the richest man in the 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.400 world where he was worth more than three hundred billion dollars, 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:46.640 and there was a lot of chatter at the time 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.559 that he might have a chance to become a trillionaire. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.439 At the same time, governments, at least in the United 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.280 States and the EU had more of a sense that 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.439 we need to spread the relief, and so people at 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:02.120 the bottom got a fair amount in terms of stimulus payments, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.160 extra unemployment checks, and enhanced child text credit that was 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.080 introduced in the United States, and so if you actually 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.280 look at the bottom fifty percent or so, their wealth 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.880 has actually gone up quite a bit. It's basically doubled 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.240 in the last two years in terms of dollar amount, 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.400 and it's still a tiny share of total US wealth, 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.600 but their share has been growing. And we don't know 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.800 how long this is going to last as inflation comes 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.480 along here, inflation could actually just completely erase all these 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.160 games in the next few years. We'll see, But for now, 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.920 there's some signs that the poorest Americans sort of the 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.200 working class you could say, and the bottom fifty of 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.680 the country have done pretty well. Considering so that sounds 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.000 like a pretty US or maybe Western Europe focused story. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.120 How did it play out in other countries that were 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.160 maybe starting from different places of an equality. Well, not 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.120 every place had the resources to give a big bail out. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.320 Not everyone can afford to trillions and trillions of hours 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.960 of stimulus, So different countries made different policy choices and 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:09.079 that ended up influencing the economy and how those countries 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.680 went through the pandemic. Another issue there is COVID and 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.280 how how countries managed COVID and how much either lockdowns 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.880 or the virus itself disrupted their economy. Some were in 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.560 lockdown for really long periods of time, and both of 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:28.480 those things, the stimulus and managing the virus, ended up 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.920 having disparate impacts depending on where you lived. If you 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.080 look at Taiwan, which really managed the virus quite well, 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.520 its economy actually grew in unlike most of the world, 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:44.560 and it actually grew faster than Somehow, US economy of 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:49.360 course shrank in. But then if you look down at Peru, 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.720 which had pretty severe lockdowns and it was really impacted 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.600 by the virus, Peru's economy shrank more than eleven percent 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:01.040 in one of the biggest drops in GDP in the world. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.679 If you look at it, it's really country by country. Again, 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.880 we're still getting the data. We don't know exactly where 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.600 this is all going to end up. But one area 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.680 I'm really interested in is South America and Latin America. 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:18.000 Why is Latin America so interesting too? Before the pandemic, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.360 we had a situation where inequality was getting worse than 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.760 a lot of Western countries. One of the questions we 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.559 had was where is this all headed. If you look 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.840 at Latin America, these are middle income countries and they 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:31.720 have a level of an equality that is about the 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:36.679 same as Sub Saharan Africa, places that are much much poorer. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:41.200 So you have a situation where in Brazil, for example, 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:43.800 you have almost half the wealth of the country is 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.360 owned by the top one percent. In the United States, 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:50.240 it's about a third. But the question was, are the 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.760 US and other rich countries on the way to that 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.480 same kind of level of inequality? Are we going to 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.360 also maybe have the same kind of extreme polity x 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:05.440 and extreme gaps in society they seem to go along 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:31.840 with high inequality. So it's basically a cautionary tale. Ben 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.800 mentioned Brazil. It's one of the most unequal countries in 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.560 one of the most unequal regions in the world. So 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.599 that's the first place we're going this season, specifically to Brazilia. 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.760 It's the capital and it also happens to be the 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.640 most unequal place in the country. My colleague Shannon Sims, 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.240 an editor at Bloomberg, lives there and is giving us 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.199 the view on the ground. Well, I first moved to 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.200 Brazil back in two thousand and twelve. When I got here, 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.280 it felt like a totally different country. There was a 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.120 sense at that time that the middle class called classes 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.360 was completely booming, So families were booking Disney World vacations, 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.959 and they were investing in real estate, they were opening 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.800 new businesses. In two thousand nine, the Economist magazine published 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.480 an iconic cover story that showed the famous Christ the 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.720 Redeemer statute taking off like a rocket, and the headline read, 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:28.840 Brazil takes off Latin America's success story. By two thousand fifteen, 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.920 things had already started moving in the other direction. Growth 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.320 was slowing down, the currency was hurting, and then the 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.000 pandemic hit, and it hit really hard. More than six 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.800 hundred and fifty thousand people here have died so far, 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.920 but the impact on the daily lives of braziliance has 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.760 also been really startling. There are lots of things I 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.840 could point to to show how bad things are, like 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.080 how the Hayal plunged in value almost overnight in March, 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.440 and how Brazilians have loaded up on debt that they 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.679 can't keep up with. The average credit card interest rate 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:07.840 here has hit almost three hundred and fifty. But there's 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.920 one big, big group of people who we don't often 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.000 hear about and who have had it particularly bad during 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:19.600 the pandemic, single moms. Ever since I moved to Brazil, 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:22.720 I've been struck by the number of single mothers here. 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.680 Current estimates suggest that there could be as many as 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.960 twenty million single moms in Brazil. That's close to the 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:36.400 entire population of Australia. The trend is only increasing. The 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.920 number of birth certificates registered without a father jumped by 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.760 about over the past year, which indicates the group is growing. 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.880 Before COVID, single mom has already had it tough with 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.680 trying to sort out childcare, taking unpaying fathers to court, 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.120 commuting to jobs they were lucky to have in a 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.320 tough market. They seem like they were barely hanging on 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.880 in a precarious position, almost like an underclass. COVID, it seemed, 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.480 would have only made their struggle harder and only widened 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.520 the distance between their reality and how they'd like their 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.000 lives to be. So to better understand just how these 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.800 women are managing in the wake of COVID, I followed 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.480 one woman, a thirty five year old mother of two 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:25.040 named Hanata, through her day, which starts before dawn at 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.280 five am. It's still dark when I pull up to 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.000 Hanata's house. She's opening the gate for me and immediately 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:47.720 starts blurting out how she's grappling with a dilemma already. Clusion. Today, 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.000 we got a problem. My kids will go to school 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.320 this morning. There's going to be a teachers strike, so 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.200 they won't go. Teachers are striking for better pay here 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.280 and some Umbaya, a working class satellite city on the 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.880 outskirts of Brazilia. So rather than drop her kids off 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.040 at school on the way to work like she normally would, 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.080 she's happy to set up Plan B. They'll stay at 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.120 home until they walk alone to their after school programs. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.040 Fourteen year old Juan is learning trombone and nine year 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:20.239 old Hailani likes dance and Notaza rummages through their backpacks, 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.120 checking to make sure they have what they need for 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.080 the day. As they stir in their beds, she wishes 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:33.000 them a good morning. Oh. As she gets ready for work, 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.120 she makes sure to leave some dinner on the stove 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.240 as well. That's because she won't get back before nine 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.320 pm tonight, hopefully in time to pull up the covers 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.800 on her kids as they get in bed, but maybe not, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.320 and not to course coffee from a brown thermis. As 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.760 she eyes the time on her phone, she's got to 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:54.920 be out the door when her alarm rings in about 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.840 five minutes. She works from seven thirty to five thirty 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.520 every day and a big glass government building in the 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:05.080 heart of Brazilia a forty five minute drive away. She's 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.560 called a colpea, a cup lady, and she serves little 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.480 sugary cups of coffee to government officials all day long. 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.760 The people in suits who drink her coffee are the 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.800 same officials making the kinds of decisions that can change 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:22.240 the lives of Hanata and other single moms overnight women 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.080 who are just trying to figure out how to get 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.240 by in the wake of the pandemic. Despite their numbers, 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:29.760 single mothers are also one of the segments of the 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.639 population that most often get left behind. The National Statistics 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.560 Agency here reports that sixty three percent of households led 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.359 by single moms are living below the poverty line. For 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.400 those living above the poverty line, like Hanata, the unforeseen 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.960 arrival of the pandemic and now it's economic fallout are 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.480 threatening to pull her under. To avoid that plummet, she's 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.560 had to pivot, and so she is piled on top 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.679 of her regular coffee lady job. A hodgepodge assortment of 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.880 side hustles, jobs that are what economists might call part 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.920 of the gig economy. As a pandemic has worn on, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.600 she's added more and more, and so now there's hardly 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:13.960 a minute in her day when she's not workings. Fessile 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:25.720 me the SA could think only time to get out 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.680 the door. Hanata says COVID has turned her life upside down. 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.080 She said she's been backed into taking on these extra 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.399 jobs just to keep pace with the cost of living. 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.560 As she darts around the house, quickly packing up for 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.240 the day, she tells me how she's battling to keep 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.760 above the welfare line because she doesn't want her family's 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.320 finances left to the whims of government assistance. In just 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.120 the past year, consumer prices have risen more than ten 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.040 percent here, and the most recent inflation forecasts show that 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.080 trend's only going to get worse. Nowhere has been spared 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.240 by the economic impact of COVID, but in brazz Ill, 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.280 the shutdowns disruption to the supply chain was compounded by 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.000 extreme drought conditions that ruined crops last year, and that 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.200 was before Brusha's invasion of Ukraine made everything worse the result, 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.159 the price of a tomato doubled over a period of months, 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.199 along with so many other staples. The value of the 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.040 local currency started evaporating amid all the turmoil, and soon 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.000 and not that went from serving fresh salads to her 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.880 kids to not being able to afford anything beyond rice 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:34.560 and beans. Nya sena sini fister doesn't size, they say, 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:45.560 saints it since basic bacasco guys gazolin the basics. Today 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.520 you can't. It's six hundred seven hund the highs, the basics, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.040 the most basic of the basics. So the cost of 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.840 living through Brazilians due to COVID, due to the war, 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.280 due to everything that's happening, the cost of living increased 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.960 a lot. Really you a lot? No. I mean, it's 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.480 not impossible to manage as a single mom, but it 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:13.960 is complicated. As we get into her car, I noticed 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.080 the gas gage shows that we have less than a 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.280 quarter tank. It seems a little low for us to 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:24.960 get all the way into the city. I don't know, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:31.960 as Scotts. Now we're going to pick up Dona Halsa 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.359 and she's a warrior woman to you know, to make 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:39.119 a little extra cash. One of Hanata's side hustles is 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.960 driving a woman named Dona Josa for a flat feed. 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:44.840 Hanata met her when she ubered her home one night, 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:46.840 and as it would turn out, Donal Hols is a 0:20:46.880 --> 0:21:04.880 single mom, herself a mask that a hole. It's been 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.000 years that I get up at four am. It's been 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:11.080 years I raised my kids and this ridom. Hanata, who 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.119 still has her eye on the time, instructs Dona Halsa 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.280 to put on her seatbelt as Halsa hands her thirty 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.480 hay eyes. Dona host is a small woman in her 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.879 sixties from the northern Brazilian state of It's one of 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.240 the poorest in the country and the kind of hot, 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.320 desperate place where they say only the strong survive. Dona 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:36.280 Holsa carries that battle faced spirit with her. I'm from 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.640 I got here in seventy five. When we got here, 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:41.800 we would roll up our sleeves and get to work. 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.720 She raised her children on her own, but as she 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.880 tells me, things are worse today than she's ever seen them. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.560 Hosa works as a housekeeper and one of the richer 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:56.400 neighborhoods of Brazilia called where organic grocery stores and cocktail 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.280 bars and fancy playgrounds for the kids line the blocks. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.639 She's worked for the same family for more than five years, 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:06.080 but since COVID began, they cut back her days from 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.479 five to two per week, so she used to make 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.960 seven hundred and fifty eyes per week. Now she's paid 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:18.399 three d And there's a big catch. They told her 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.760 they don't want her taking the bus because she'll have 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.439 too much exposure to the virus and can bring it 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.800 into their house. That way, if she wants to keep working, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:29.800 she has to take an uber and she has to 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.359 pay for it. As a result, the cost of her 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:37.760 daily commute increased tenfold, and Haulsa is not happy about it. 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:50.000 Last last, she should be paying part of my fair 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.800 I think she had the obligation to pay, don't you think? 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.040 But no, I pay with the tiny bit that I learned. 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.919 Hanata and Paulsa dive into a heated conversation about how 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:19.520 COVID has underlined inequality here, I no sabe somewhere LETI 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:26.879 rich thing that COVID only comes from poor people. So 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.320 I'm not gonna let the cleaning woman come because she 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:31.720 could bring it to me. But they don't think about 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:34.240 the fact that the people who actually bring the virus 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.119 are those who travel around everywhere will take plane to 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:39.960 go to other countries. We'll just stay in our little world. 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:42.960 We just go downtown, back home, downtown, back home. We 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:46.760 don't leave the house. The fact that rich employers view 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.159 people like Hanata and Donna Haza as the source of 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:54.159 infection is especially going to Hanata because of how the 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:58.080 outbreak happened here. At the beginning of the pandemic, there 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:01.199 was a major super spreader event a luxury beach resort 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:04.640 called Frangozo. It put on display how the wealth He's 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:09.960 jet setting lifestyle was contributing to the outbreak. Meanwhile, Hanata 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.280 has never traveled outside of the city. In fact, she's 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:15.320 only able to travel as far as her gas tank 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.080 can take her. We pull up to the gas station 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:20.640 and Hanna to ask the attendant for thirty he eyes 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:27.080 worth the gas. I realized the thirty hey eyes Josa 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:30.560 gave her earlier is the exact amount Hanata needs to 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.080 get them into Brazilia this morning, and not just constantly 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:36.639 on the hunt for cheap fuel, which is getting harder 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:40.879 to find. Petro Bras, the state oil giant, increased prices 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:44.639 by nearly in mid March. Now Brazil has some of 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:47.359 the most expensive gas in the world, and since she 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:49.680 can only afford a little bit at a time, she 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:53.040 has developed this finely tuned sense of exactly how much 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:54.800 she'll need in the tank to get her to the 0:24:54.840 --> 0:25:09.240 next destination before the cardpt have meals she has, but 0:25:09.440 --> 0:25:13.000 COVID it has gotten worse. We could buy things then 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:16.119 that we can only buy now. Working double the hours 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:24.200 because the price of everything increased also jumps out America. 0:25:27.840 --> 0:25:30.280 Just watch what happens when I go to the grocery store. 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:40.120 I can't even buy a killo off chicken compan It's complicated. 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:43.960 This is the reality for Brazilians, a choke hold. Every day. 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:47.680 Hanata drops Holsa off and heads to the government ministry. 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:51.200 Ten hours later, I meet her as she's getting out. 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:17.959 Why as she's walking to her car, I asked her 0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:21.240 how her day went, But I noticed her mood has shifted. 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:23.959 When I left her at work, she was a chipper. 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:27.479 Now she seems like she's forcing a smile, and I 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:31.120 soon discover she's actually furious. One alone, just get out 0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:38.120 of his front of the face. I'm going to send 0:26:38.119 --> 0:26:40.879 an audio message and let's see if to answer me. 0:26:41.440 --> 0:26:44.119 Because the son of the owner is ignoring me. He 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:46.919 is ignoring all of us. I've got to call quickly 0:26:46.920 --> 0:26:52.120 because the office is about to close. She sits down 0:26:52.119 --> 0:26:55.000 on the driver's seat and almost immediately starts sending a 0:26:55.080 --> 0:26:58.960