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The calculation starts from the most expensive basic basket in the country and everything the Constitution mandates to cover, from food and housing to health, education, and leisure. The result shows a gap between what comes in and what it costs to live. And the number, according to experts, is still just enough for the basics.
Supporting a family in Brazil costs much more than most workers earn. Almost five minimum wages together would be needed to maintain a family with dignity, according to Dieese’s calculation, which points to R$ 7,612.49 as the precise amount to support a family of four, while the official minimum does not exceed R$ 1,621, a difference that highlights the budget squeeze in millions of households.
The number refers to April 2026 and was calculated by the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies, Dieese, which estimates the so-called necessary minimum wage monthly. This value represents 4.7 times the current minimum and serves as a reference for what would be needed to cover basic expenses, and not as a salary that someone actually receives. Next, we explain how this calculation is made, what it includes, and why the cost of living has increasingly weighed on the Brazilian’s pocket.
How Dieese arrives at this value
The calculation is not a guess but follows a consolidated methodology.
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Since the 1990s, Dieese has estimated the necessary minimum wage based on the cost of the most expensive basic basket in the country and the Constitution’s determination, which states that the minimum wage should be sufficient to cover a family’s expenses with food, housing, health, education, clothing, hygiene, transportation, leisure, and social security.
The calculation considers a family consisting of two adults and two children, starting from the price of food to then estimate other essential expenses.
In April 2026, based on this methodology, the necessary amount reached R$ 7,612.49. In practice, this means that each adult in the family would need to earn about R$ 3,8 thousand, more than double the current minimum wage, for the budget to balance comfortably.
It is a technical portrayal of the gap between the minimum and the real cost of living.
Food at the center of the squeeze
Among all expenses, food is one of the most pressing on the budget.
According to Dieese, in partnership with Conab, the cost of the basic food basket rose in all 27 capitals surveyed in April 2026, marking the second consecutive monthly increase, with São Paulo registering the most expensive basket in the country, at R$ 906.14, followed by Cuiabá and Rio de Janeiro.
The weight of this expense is evident in an example: in Belo Horizonte, those earning the minimum wage spent about 53% of their net salary just on basic food basket items in April, according to the survey.
In other words, more than half of what a person receives would go solely to food, leaving very little for all other expenses.
This scenario helps to understand why so many families struggle to make ends meet each month.
The reality of those earning the minimum wage
The data becomes even more significant in light of the country’s income profile.
According to the 2022 Demographic Census by IBGE, more than a third of Brazilian workers, about 35.3%, earn up to a minimum wage, which means that a huge portion of the population lives precisely with the amount that Dieese points out as insufficient to comfortably support a family.
For these people, daily life is a constant exercise in balancing, choosing where to cut back to cover the essentials.
And the warning from experts is worth noting: even the income of about R$ 7,600 calculated by Dieese serves to cover the basics with balance, and does not guarantee, by itself, a life without financial worries or room for unforeseen events, savings, and achieving larger projects.
What the minimum wage should be in 2027
In this context, the discussion about the adjustment of the minimum wage gains relevance.
The Budget Guidelines Bill proposes that the minimum wage rise to R$ 1,717 in 2027, an increase of R$ 96, or 5.9%, compared to the current value, although this proposal still needs to be analyzed by the National Congress and is not confirmed at the moment.
Even with this adjustment, if approved, the difference in relation to the necessary salary calculated by Dieese would remain enormous.
The contrast between the two values, the official minimum and the estimated ideal, is precisely what fuels the debate on purchasing power, minimum wage appreciation, and the cost of living in Brazil, a topic that directly affects the pockets of millions of workers and their families.
Dieese’s calculation functions as a thermometer of the Brazilian’s financial reality, by showing, based on a known methodology, the size of the gap between the official minimum wage and what would be needed for a family to live with dignity.
More than just an isolated number, the R$ 7,612.49 estimated for April 2026 exposes the impact of the rise in the cost of living, especially of food, on those who earn less.
Tracking this data helps each person better understand their own budget and the country’s economic scenario.
And you, what have you been doing to balance the family budget in the face of the current cost of living? Do you think the minimum wage should approach the value calculated by Dieese? Leave your comment respecting different opinions, share your experience, and help spread the article to more people who face this same challenge daily.
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