Brazil's inflation hits double digits, punishing the poor

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It’s something Brazilians have rarely seen in a quarter century, and the last time they did, in 2016, it helped set up a president’s downfall:

Double-digit inflation.

Soaring prices for gas, meat, electricity and more have left millions of poor Brazilians struggling to make ends meet. Inflation in the 12 months through September reached 10.25%, according to data the national statistics agency released Friday.

Francielle de Santana, 31, lives in Rio de Janeiro’s Jardim Gramacho neighborhood beside a massive former landfill. With no running water or electricity, she salvages scrap to earn a living and can barely afford chicken.

“With ten reais ($1.80), we used to get a lot, but now we only get three or four pieces. For three or four people, that’s little,” de Santana told The Associated Press outside her wooden shack. “Rice used to be three reais; now, it’s expensive.”

Nearby, 73-year-old retiree Leide Laurentino was cooking drumsticks on a makeshift wood stove. The price of cooking gas in September hit its highest in two decades, according to non-profit Petrobras Social Observatory, and Laurentino is rationing hers.

“If I only cook with gas, I won’t have enough. Even for coffee, I use firewood,” she said. “Sometimes at night I can heat up food, but if it rains, I eat it cold.”

Costlier fuels reflect higher oil prices as nations with plentiful vaccines shuffle off the pandemic and resume life with mobility. Supply bottlenecks as global activity ramps up have boosted other prices. Before slowing slightly in August, U.S. inflation was running at 5.4% annually, its fastest since 2008. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index recorded a 10-year high in September.

But there are local effects stoking Brazilian inflation, too, said...