Possibilities and limitations of income transfer programs and social assistance services: Are we condemned to the punishment of sisyphus?

Programs of cash transfer have been a dominant strategy in the fight against poverty and a pillar of social protection on the continent. These programs break with the insurance model and innovate by requiring shared responsibility from the families.

Are recognized the impacts on poverty and inequality, education, health, nutrition, housing and in relationships within the family. What are the limits of this type of program to generate autonomy or empowerment of families and individuals? There is in poverty, especially the chronic one, the presence of psychosocial aspects that directly affect both its production and reproduction and the possibilities of overcoming.

In Brazil, Bolsa Familia transfers income to more than 13 million households and, together with the Social Assistance System (SUAS), respond for most of the social assistance policy that is centered on the relationship between income transfers and social assistance services, mixing universal and targeted strategies. The SUAS organizes and regulates the social assistance policies in all federative levels and defines the architecture and operation of protective services by levels of complexity.

The services are significant in promoting changes in the relational aspects and the benefits can avoid the misery of the beneficiaries. However they are insufficient to leverage a change in living conditions of families, a real empowerment. Deficits and demands not considered in education, health, housing and work define the limits of protection policies.

This paper examines these issues and presents the results of a quantitative (608 questionnaires) and qualitative research with beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia and social assistance services in Belo Horizonte, a Brazilian metropolis, measuring effects on relational dimensions and more intangible aspects. The results show such effects (measured by the relational index and the willingness to collective action), but point out the barriers - structural and systemic - that constrain the possibilities for effective poverty overcoming.