MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

How to live on 596 US dollars monthly.

Eight out of ten Brazilian families have difficulties paying their bills and stretching earnings to reach the end of the month according to a report from the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute, IBGE.

Out of 48,5 million Brazilian families, 85,5% admitted having "difficulties" in paying their bills while 14,5% said they can comfortably manage the situation. Among the majority of Brazilian families, 27,2% indicated they have "great difficulties" in meeting bills and reaching the end of the month. Half of these families with "great difficulties", (51,5%), must live on a minimum national salary which is equivalent to 130 US dollars.

The average family income in Brazil according to the IBGE report is approximately 596 US dollars per month with fixed monthly expenses of 592 US dollars.

The report which measured the income and expenses of Brazilian families between July 2002 and June 2003, also indicates that four out of ten Brazilian families don't feed sufficiently to ensure a good nutritional level.

Only 13% admitted feeding sufficiently, and the rest said that the quality of their diet depends entirely on income.

Per capita consumption of meat among rich Brazilian families averages 21,36 kilos but only 10,96 among the poorest. On the other end, poor Brazilians consume annually 15,1 kilos of beans and the rich 10,8 kilos.

The report also showed that Brazilian families actually spend 93,36% of their income in fixed expenditures such as housing, food, transport, health and taxes, while 28 years ago this was only 79,86%. This means that investing in the family or acquisition of assets has dropped from 16,5% to 4,76% in 2002/03.

Average Brazilian families spend 35,5% of their income in housing; 20,7% in food; 18,44% in transport; 4% in education and 6,5% in health.

Compared to 28 years ago, food expenditure decreased and increased for education and health.