The IBGE released today (04/04) first report about the Consumer Expenditure Survey (POF), in a press conference held at Casa Brasil IBGE, downtown Rio de Janeiro (RJ). The The event was streamed from Fortaleza (CE) in partnership with the Institute of Economic Strategy and Research of Ceará (IPECE), and was reproduced in Porto Alegre (RS) and Natal (RN), besides Digital IBGE and other networks of the Institute.

The opening panel session was formed by the president of the IBGE, Marcio Pochmann, by means of a recorded video, and by Edson Vieira, IBGE superintendent in Goiás, Marcelo Melo, superintendent in Maranhão, Mário Frazeto, in Mato Grosso do Sul, José Renato de Almeida, in Rio Grande do Sul, Francisco Garrido, in São Paulo, Rúbia Lenza, in Minas Gerais, and Marianna Moura, deputy superintendent of the Institute in Sergipe. The coordinator of the Center for Information Documentation and Dissemination and of the Social Communication Division (CDDI CCS), Daniel Castro, was the session mediator, speaking from IPECE, together with the IBGE superintendent in Ceará, Francisco Lopes.

Pochmann reinforced the objective of POF, a survey that visits more than 100 housing units in Brazil in order to find out about citizens’ consumption habits and how they spend their budget. “This survey is essential for Brazil to have a better measure of the inflation, the cost of living, and the quality of life of Brazilians, and find out, for example, about the existence of food insufficiency.”

Lopes highlighted the partnership between the IBGE and IPECE and said the event aimed at “showing the importance of POF to show the Brazilian society information from household surveys. And, thus, present new characteristics of the Brazilian population. This survey will also update the goods and products found in the home of Brazilians, with an impact on the National Consumer Price Index (INPC) and on the Extended National Consumer Price Index (IPCA),” highlighted the superintendent in Ceará.

The superintendents attending the event took the opportunity to evidence the importance of POF in the formulation of public policies, as Edson Vieira explained. “This survey is essential not Only regarding inflation, but also to better calculate national accounts, since household consumption has the highest weight in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), representing 65% from the perspective of demand,” said the superintendent of the IBGE in  Goiás.

Consumer Expenditure Survey Report

The release was attended by the IBGE Director of Surveys, Gustavo Junger, the Coordinator of Household Sample Surveys, Adriana Beringuy, and the Manager of POF, Leonardo Santos de Oliveira, as well as by other technicians who work in the planning, execution and monitoring of the survey. This balance is an update of the fieldwork that started and was launched in November 2024.

Gustavo Junger, Director of Surveys at the Institute, explained that POF may be the start of a transformation process in the country. “This survey provides data for the formulation of public policies, which are needed for the calculation of inflation and of national accounts.”

Gustavo Junger, Director of Surveys of the Institute, explained that POF can be the start of a transformation process in the country

The coordinator of Household Sample Surveys, Adriana Beringuy, compared POF to a marathon. “At this moment, the survey is halfway through and it is fundamental for its conclusion. The latest edition of POF was in the period 2017-2018, still at a pre-pandemic moment, resulting in changes in personal and family habits, which will be referred to in this survey.”

Beringuy also mentioned the importance of technological advance. “The expansion of social media and of new forms of work, using apps, for example, generate relevant social impacts that will be treated in POF.”

POF has a total of four steps; the first one has been in the field since November 2024. This survey is the basis for the survey inflation and the support to a number of national indicators, besides being an international reference for the economy of Brazil, as it records the history of consumption and the current consumption habits of the population. 

Leonardo Oliveira, manager of POF, presented the current status of the survey and reinforced is processes, which had already been explained in a press conference in November 2024.

“The current edition of POF started in November 2024 and its conclusion is planned for November 2025. So far, 36,759 of the 103,145 housing units have been visited, which means 35.6% of the total. Among the biggest percentages are the ones in the Federal District (37.6%), Paraná (36.8%) and Minas Gerais (36.7%),” said the manager of POF.

Oliveira showed the main innovations in the current edition of the survey, such as the access to financial services, subjective assessments, family history, access to information, persons with disabilities, gender identity and sexual orientation. POF has seven questionnaires with the following topics: characteristics of housing units and of residents, collective purchases, collective purchases notebook, individual purchases, labor and individual earnings, conditions of living and personal food consumption.

The manager also explained the test on use of time, a process that will take place in the last step of the survey. “A Federation Unit in each Major Region will be in charge of receiving this test, with approximately two thirds of urban localities and a total of  3,720 housing units. In the Southeast, for example, São Paulo will be this Federation Unit, with 1,120 housing units, being 864 of them in the urban area.”

Inauguration of the IBGE Bookstore

During the event, the IBGE opened a new um space inside Palácio da Fazenda. On the first floor of the building is located the IBGE Bookstore, where materials such as atlases, maps and official publications of the Institute are available, a place for dissemination of information and access to all the statistical and geoscientific information produced by the Institute.  

Website of the Consumer Expenditure Survey 

The coordinator of Online Experience and Services (CDDI/CEON), Leandro Albertini, presented the website of POF, with the purpose of disseminating information about the survey, answering doubts such as: What POF is, what its purpose is, topics surveyed, basis for studies, methodology and Frequency. Click here to visit the website.

Competition of short POF videos about POF

Marcos Balster, manager of Educational Affairs of the Institute, announced the launch of registrations for a competition of short videos about POF. “The idea is to create a trend for the social media. In these short videos, people will show their purchases in the segments of education and Transportation, for example. As a result, we intend to make the survey even better known by the population and raise awareness of it.”

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