At the very end of the electoral race for the first round, President Lula performed a series of kindnesses in an effort to win the election. Whether it will be successful or not, only the polls will tell.
The list of measures is long: readjustment of the Bolsa Família program; ban on betting; the Desenrola 3 program; the universalization of the Pé de Meia program for all public high school students (in the previous version, only students from the Cadastro Único were eligible); possible incorporation of weight-loss pens into the SUS; and the smoothing of fuel prices, with the subsidy of diesel and ethanol in addition to the reduction of PIS/Cofins on gasoline and ethanol.
The package in the previous paragraph is expected to increase spending by R$22.3 billion in the last quarter of the year and by R$56 billion in 2027. The fiscal impulse for the last quarter will be in the order of 0.6% of quarterly GDP.
This package complements the measures previously adopted: the Gás do Povo program; social tariff for electricity; change of the IRPF table; the new loan for CLT workers; the second Unrolls; increase in the budget of the Minha Casa Minha Vida program; in addition to the Move Brasil Táxi and Applications credit programs.
The economy is already at full strength. The unemployment rate, at historic lows, at 5.4%, since the second quarter of 2026, indicates that the labor market operates with excess demand over supply.
In fact, inflation of labor-intensive service items has risen. According to the inflation preview, the IPCA-15, these items ran at 7% in the 12 months ending in September 2026, compared to 6.1% in September 2025. There are signs that services inflation, which moderated in the first half of 2026, largely due to the lagged effects of the appreciation of the real in 2025, is starting to rise again.
In other words, the fiscal boost from Lula's final effort for re-election will hit in the last three months in an economy at full load. The economy should expand a little more, but very little, as there is not much room for further growth, and the impact of the fiscal impulse will essentially be on services inflation.
Goods inflation should not feel much, as imports set limits to the impact of excess demand on prices.
Goods inflation running below services inflation means appreciation of the real exchange rate. The industry will continue to suffer. There is not much solution: the extreme priority of economic policy in maintaining the PT project of inclusion through consumption does not leave much space for the transformation industry.
The fiscal impulse at the end of the year consolidates a four-year period in which real primary spending grew at 5% per year, for an economy that, at full employment, grew at 2.7% per year. Differently, from 2015 to 2019, real primary spending grew at a rate of 1% per year. Evidently the interest rates were lower.
In other words, the slowdown that was predicted for the fourth quarter, continuing the process of deceleration that has followed since the second quarter of the year, will probably undergo a reversal. We will probably close the year with unemployment rates at their lowest and services inflation under pressure. The adjustment will be until 2027.
