Distribuição de renda no Rio Grande do Norte: um estudo da evolução nos anos 90.

Abstract

Production and distribution of income has been a controversial subject which origin is confounded with the age of economy as a scientific knowledge. Disparities between both economic growth and wealth distribution, and its indexes of poverty and social inequality, are always present in most of current debates. This work aims at analyzing the wealth distribution process in Rio Grande do Norte State during the nineties, relating it to economic growth. As a theoretical framework, several works related to this theme were consulted. The analysis of the study object had, as a basis, data from National Research for Home Sample - NRHS - available to the nineties, specifically data referring to both Economically Active Population - EAP - and monthly family wages. The data referring to economic growth has shown that the economy of Rio Grande do Norte has grown during the last decade, although such a growth has been in terms of a space and a sectorial centered way, that is, it has occurred in some service and industrial activities, and were basically located in two poles - Natal and Mossoro - instead of other regions of the State. Relating to wages, an improvement in employed population performance was detected, although more of the half of economically active population used to earn less than two minimum wages, wile 9% of EAP earned above 5 wages monthly. Another data that shows the persistence of inequality is the family per capta income average. Wile 10% of the richest workers earned about 7.45 minimum wages, the 40% poorest earned only 0.32 - less than 1/3 the value of the minimum wage. The continuity of such an income concentration reflects in social indexes. The State reached the end of the decade with more than 25% of the population in the illiteracy, what represents about 700,000 people. The infant mortality rate is still quite superior at the average of the country, in spite of reduction achieved in the nineties. In that context, it can be concluded that the kind economic growth of the State doesn't have brought benefits population, especially to the ones who were set in low income classes.