Everything was done while preserving the target
In early August, at a financial conference in São Paulo, the president of Brazil's largest public bank declared the country resilient and well-governed — even as nearly 63 million Brazilians lived in poverty and over 10 million remained without work. Daniella Marques's optimism, offered from a stage in the heart of the financial world, stood in quiet but profound tension with the data accumulating beneath it. Her words raise an enduring question: when does official confidence become a refusal to see, and who bears the cost of that refusal?
- Brazil's economic indicators — 11.89% inflation, 13%+ interest rates, 10.1 million unemployed — paint a portrait of a population under serious strain, not a nation thriving.
- 9.6 million Brazilians fell into poverty in 2021 alone, pushing the total to 62.9 million people surviving on roughly R$497 per month, the worst figure since records began in 2012.
- The government rushed R$41.25 billion in emergency social spending through a constitutional workaround weeks before a national election, raising sharp questions about whether relief was humanitarian or electoral.
- Marques defended the spending as fiscally responsible and dismissed critics as people 'rooting against' Brazil, framing dissent as disloyalty rather than legitimate concern.
- Her vision for Caixa — focused on women and small entrepreneurs — offered a forward-looking narrative, but one that struggled to reconcile ambition with the immediate weight of poverty and joblessness.
On a Wednesday in early August, Daniella Marques took the stage at Expert XP in São Paulo and told the financial world that Brazil was doing well. As president of Caixa Econômica Federal, the country's largest public bank, she praised Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and expressed frustration with those she said were rooting against the nation. The setting was polished. The claim was striking.
The numbers offered a different account. Research from the Fundação Getulio Vargas showed that 9.6 million Brazilians had fallen into poverty in 2021 alone, bringing the total to 62.9 million people — the highest since tracking began in 2012 — each living on no more than R$497 per month. Unemployment stood at 10.1 million. Inflation had climbed to nearly 12 percent over the prior year, with interest rates exceeding 13 percent.
Marques had assumed leadership of Caixa only months earlier, after her predecessor resigned amid sexual harassment allegations. At the conference, she described moving swiftly to restore governance and protect those caught in the fallout. She also defended the government's recent Auxílios PEC — an emergency constitutional amendment that expanded the Brazil Aid program, restored a gas voucher, and created new benefits for truck drivers and taxi drivers, at a total cost of R$41.25 billion. The spending was set to expire after the election. Marques rejected any suggestion of fiscal recklessness, insisting that all targets had been preserved.
Looking ahead, she outlined a Caixa centered on women and small business owners, framing entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social transformation and calling for financial products designed with women's needs in mind. It was a vision of possibility — but one delivered against a backdrop of deepening hardship that her own words seemed reluctant to fully name.
Daniella Marques stood before an audience at Expert XP, São Paulo's financial conference, on a Wednesday in early August and made a claim that seemed to float free from the ground beneath it: Brazil is doing well. The president of Caixa Econômica Federal, the nation's largest public bank, offered this assessment even as the country grappled with inflation running at nearly 12 percent over the previous year, interest rates above 13 percent, and 10.1 million people without work. She spoke warmly of her former boss, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, calling it a privilege that Brazil had someone like him steering policy through the pandemic. She also expressed frustration with what she called people "rooting against" the country.
The numbers told a different story. According to research from the Fundação Getulio Vargas, 9.6 million Brazilians had slipped below the poverty line in 2021 alone. By that year's end, the total count had reached 62.9 million people living on no more than 497 reais per month for each family member—the highest figure since the institute began tracking poverty in 2012. Unemployment had swelled to 10.1 million. The gap between what Marques was saying and what the data showed was not a small one.
Marques had taken the helm of Caixa just months earlier, after her predecessor Pedro Guimarães resigned following allegations of sexual harassment. She had worked alongside Guedes in the financial sector before both joined the Bolsonaro administration. At the conference, she described her early weeks managing the fallout from the scandal, emphasizing that she had moved quickly to establish what she called solid governance to protect those involved in the process.
On the question of government spending, Marques defended the administration's recent moves with particular vigor. Congress had just passed an emergency constitutional amendment—the so-called Auxílios PEC—that raised the Brazil Aid program from 400 reais to 600 reais per month, restored a gas voucher, and created new benefits for truck drivers and taxi drivers. The total cost to the public treasury came to 41.25 billion reais. All of it was set to expire after the election. To make the payments legally possible, the government had invoked an emergency declaration, which allowed the spending to bypass the constitutional spending cap that had been breached multiple times already. Marques rejected any suggestion that this amounted to fiscal recklessness or what she called "kamikaze" populism. "Everything was done while preserving the target," she said, referring to the government's inflation control goals.
Looking forward, Marques outlined a vision for Caixa that centered on two constituencies: women and small business owners. She framed entrepreneurship as a tool for social transformation and said the bank should deepen its focus on formalizing informal workers and serving micro and small enterprises. On the question of gender, she acknowledged that people begin from different starting points of advantage, though she insisted that aptitude has nothing to do with gender, race, or any other category. The bank, she suggested, needed financial products and services designed with women in mind.
The tension in Marques's remarks was not subtle. She was defending an administration that had spent heavily to shore up its political standing weeks before an election, while simultaneously presiding over a bank meant to serve a population increasingly squeezed by inflation and joblessness. Her insistence that Brazil was resilient, that the country was doing well, seemed less like an economic assessment and more like an act of will—a refusal to acknowledge the weight of the numbers stacked against her claim.
Citações Notáveis
I think Brazil is doing well. We had such a large resilience test from the pandemic. It seems like many people are rooting against Brazil.— Daniella Marques, president of Caixa Econômica Federal
Vocations have nothing to do with gender, race, or anything else, but we must recognize that people start from different stages of privilege.— Daniella Marques
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
How does a bank president square the claim that a country is thriving when nearly 10 million people fell into poverty in a single year?
That's the question, isn't it? Marques seemed to be speaking to resilience—the idea that Brazil survived the pandemic shock. But resilience and thriving are not the same thing. One is about survival; the other is about flourishing.
She praised her former boss, the Economy Minister, quite warmly. Was that just professional courtesy?
It seemed more than that. They had worked together in finance before joining government. There's a shared worldview there—a belief in the rightness of the decisions made. When you're defending those decisions in public, you're also defending yourself.
The government spent 41 billion reais on emergency benefits right before an election. How does that get called fiscally responsible?
By redefining what fiscal responsibility means. If you believe the spending was necessary, if you believe it preserved the inflation target, then it becomes responsible by definition. The question is whether the numbers support that belief.
She mentioned protecting people involved in a scandal at the bank. What was that about?
Her predecessor had been accused of sexual harassment and resigned. She was signaling that she was taking it seriously, establishing new governance structures. It's a necessary move for someone inheriting a damaged institution.
What struck you most about what she said?
The disconnect. Here's someone running a major public bank, speaking to an audience of wealthy investors, insisting the country is doing well while 62 million people live on less than 500 reais a month. It's not that she's lying exactly. It's that she's looking at the same country and seeing something entirely different.