ABSTRACT
Brazil is experiencing intertwined crises, feeding each other and blurring boundaries. The first is the economic crisis, which started in 2013 and unleashed a crisis in the labor market. With informality reaching 45 percent of the workforce, more than 75 percent of Brazilians arrived at the gates of the pandemic in a condition of deep social vulnerability and precariousness. There is also a political crisis starting in 2014, resulting from an extensive judicialization of political and social relations as a consequence of Operation Car Wash, which destroyed not only large economic sectors (infrastructure, oil and gas, naval production, heavy construction), thus feeding the economic crisis, but also the party system. Together these crises opened the way for Jair Bolsonaro, who exacerbated crisis with his antagonistic, autocratic and authoritarian approach to politics. Radical neoliberalism starting in 2017 ignited a deep crisis in government services and institutions. Disinvestment in health, education and social policies, evisceration of labor rights, ‘uberization’ of the labor market and other reforms made the already vulnerable workforce even poorer. Measures to alleviate the consequences of the pandemic in the formal and informal sectors reduced income from 40 percent to 90 percent of the original figures, thus making it impossible for informal workers to stay at home. The president’s denial of the pandemic risks fuels social unrest and pressure to return to work.
