Social Classes In Brazil

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Social classes in Brazil originated around the 1950’s, when the country as a whole saw an increase in economic stature. Social classes are now used to categorize the almost 200 million people currently living in Brazil. Brazil has a unique way of defining their social classes, as they use Class A to E as a way of describing economic status; Class A being the wealthiest and class E being the poorest. The majority of Brazil’s citizens use the three common class names when speaking of social classes, the wealthy, middle class, and lower class. There are undoubtedly many controversies that separate the wealthy society from the poor however, these issues have become more prevalent in the past decade. The wealthy citizens of Brazil only make up …show more content…

As of 2015, the middle class makes up around 50 percent of Brazil’s total population. The estimated number of people in the middle class today is about 36 million Brazilians (Reporter, 2016). In fact, in 2012, the middle class was classified as the largest of all the social classes in Brazil. Families in the middle class typically live in average sized homes close to the cities and beaches of Brazil. In these homes are electrical appliances, colored televisions, and air conditioning. The most shocking possession of a typical middle class family is a maid. Maids in Brazil are from the lower class and are paid low wages by the middle and upper class in order to keep their homes clean (Reporter, 2016). While there are a few luxuries of being in the middle class, there is currently much controversy over the standing of the middle class in Brazil today. Many headlines read that the middle class is beginning to lose ground, based off of the 2015 census. Citizens blame the increase in lower class citizens joining the middle class. The middle class income levels are now so widespread because of this trend, that the middle and lower classes seem to be blending. To support this data, Forbes released a report which revealed that in the past ten years, over 35 million people in Brazil have joined the middle class, equaling out to around 38 percent of the total population. If this trend were to continue in the next decade, by 2022, it is estimated that over 60% of Brazil’s population will be housed under the middle

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