30% of the poorest Brazilians stop buying food to pay for electricity bills

A survey by Ipec, carried out at the request of Pólis Institute with support from iCS, shows that 36% of families spend half of their monthly income on electricity

The Pólis Institute published a study that shows that 30% of Brazilians who are part of classes D/E fail to buy basic foods, such as rice and beans, in order to pay electricity and gas bills. The survey, carried out with support from iCS and conducted by Ipec (Intelligence in Research and Strategic Consulting), showed that 60% of families say that they have overdue electricity bills, and 68% were black and 31% were white.

Also, according to the survey, 36% of the families spend half or more than half of their monthly income to pay off their electricity bills. The population living in the North and Northeast regions are the most affected by the spending, with 53% of the former and 45% of the latter spending half or more than half of their monthly budget on this expense.

The study interviewed 2,000 people from all regions of Brazil. The confidence interval is 95%, and the margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points.

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