Agência Brasil
Brasília – By 2050, the number of people in Brazil over the age of 60 will more than double, jumping from the present 15 million to around 32 million. That is something public policy will have to deal with so the issue will be discussed at a Mercosur meeting that begins tomorrow (25) in Brasilia.
Minister of Social Development and Hunger Combat, Patrus Ananias, calls the problem a permanent challenge. He says the question is how to provide quality of life to an aging population. Ananias points out that at the moment the Brazilian government provides direct aid of one kind or another to some one million senior citizens. The Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva administration has also made the Senior Citizen Statute a reality. Among other things, it pays needy older people a minimum wage per month.
