Bolsa Família as State Policy and the Prohibition of Social Regression

This work argues that the Bolsa Família Program should be understood as a state policy as it is a public welfare policy that is essential to the realization of social rights. As a government policy it becomes an instrument for directing votes stigmatizing individuals and weakening democracy. As a state policy that enforces social rights it is understood that the Bolsa Família Program is implicitly constitutionalized; or as constitutionalists affirm it is part of the so-called material constitution. Social rights acquired constitutional status due to the 1988 Constitution and because they are of a service nature they require that the public policies that enforce them also have this constitutional protection.