In April, the basic basket in Brasília cost R$ 768.22, almost half the minimum wage to feed one person. Rent has increased for the fourth consecutive year above inflation in the Federal District. Those who live far away pay R$ 5.50 for the long-distance fare and spend up to two hours per leg. None of this is new to those who live in Itapoã, Sol Nascente, or Estrutural. The novelty is that it has now become a government program.
The DF has thehigher median income in the countryIn fourteen administrative regions, the per capita income is below the minimum wage. This average has a cruel effect: the prices of food, housing, and transportation are set according to the consumption patterns of high-income earners, and those who earn less pay a much larger proportion of their salary for these necessities. Talking about the cost of living here is the most direct way to discuss inequality.
The document that District Deputy Fábio Felix (Psol) submitted toLeandro Grass (PT)Candidate for governor of the Federal District, presents fifteen measures related to housing, transportation, and food. Three became commitments for the first 100 days of government: full gratuity on BRT corridors every day of the week, a rental observatory with a public register of vacant properties, and the creation of the Popular Sack within community restaurants.
The most innovative and significant proposals address policies to reduce rental prices. The core is a public social housing bank, with the state acting as the long-term landlord, consisting of land from the Brasília Real Estate Company (Terracap), idle public properties, and retrofitted units in the center.
The choice responds to a specific figure: 52% of the housing deficit in DF is not a lack of homes, but an excessive burden of rent.Excessive burden with rentIn transportation, full gratuity depends on two things: the new concession of basins, which will remunerate companies per kilometer driven instead of per passenger, and a permanent source, the District Mobility Fund, which needs to be established by law. Thus, gratuity advances in phases: first BRT, then CadÚnico families, and eventually everyone. There is a second cost that doesn't appear on the fare: time. Exclusive lanes for connections from the periphery to the center, guaranteed frequency on the farthest lines, and accessible housing along mass transit axes address this cost.
Among low-income families in DF, 52.9% rely on buses. Among high-income families, 5%. Improving buses is a policy of income redistribution.
Among low-income families in the DF, 52.9% rely on buses. Among high-income families, 5%. Improving bus services is a poverty policy.
The urgency is numbered: 27% of DF's households were in food insecurity in 2024, up from 23% the previous year, affecting around 845,000 people. Brazil left the UN's Hunger Map in 2025, but the District of Federal went in the opposite direction.
The urgency is clear: 27% of DF's households were in food insecurity in 2024, up from 23% in the previous year, affecting approximately 845,000 people.The District Federal moved in the opposite direction from Brazil's progress in eradicating hunger.
Cost of Living on the Political Agenda
This agenda did not emerge in isolation. The plan intersects with the international economic debate and Zohran Mamdani's agenda, the mayor of New York whowon by speaking about the cost of livingand took office in January, promising to freeze rents, eliminate bus fares, and open municipal markets. The economist Isabella Weber launched "Anti-Fascist Economics" in October, with the thesis she has been advocating since the post-pandemic inflation: when the prices of essential goods surge and the government responds that prices are not a government concern, who fills the void is the far right.
Here is the data that should inform the left's strategy in the Buriti race. Between June and July, Ipsos polled 2,000 Brazilians from the ABC classes for theGlobal Fund for a New Economysurvey: 58% believe the economic system benefits the rich and powerful, 66% want the government to intervene in fuel prices, and73% support ending the 6x1 scale.With 60% support, even among opponents of the federal government.
Income transfer alleviates families, but it doesn't lower market prices on its own, and those who don't receive it understand that it's not for them. The agenda to combat the cost of living reaches the entire city, from the outsourced worker to the couple who spends half their salary on rent in Águas Claras. It's not relief, it's a dispute over who controls the prices.
For those who live here, the effect is immediate. It's the bus fare that no longer needs to be budgeted every week, the two-hour commute that shrinks, eating fresh produce from the grocery store instead of ultra-processed foods, and rent that now has a public number to be discussed. For the Sol Nascente family, who today must choose between completing their monthly purchases and paying their children's transportation, this is not an economic policy adjustment.
In politics, the effect is even greater, and it doesn't depend on any isolated measure. When a government assumes responsibility for the prices of rent, transportation, and food, it changes what voters expect from anyone who comes after. It forces the opponent to explain why 182,000 empty properties coexist with a housing queue, and why those who live farther away pay more to get there, even if they arrive later. This is the terrain where the left wins.
The cost of living is the most discussed topic at the dinner table and the least present in government programs. Inverting this order in 2026 is not an act of generosity. It's fighting the election on the terrain where the majority already is.
*Gabriel Santos Elias is a political scientist, a doctor from the University of Brasília (UnB) and a professor at the Brazilian Institute of Teaching, Development and Research (IDP). ((IDP)
**This is an opinion piece. The author's view does not necessarily reflect the editorial line of the publication.Brazil of Fact DF.
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