Discuss the structural and macroeconomic determinants of poverty in the recent Brazilian experience. Looks at the evolution of the structural determinants of poverty in Brazil during the last two decades. The main lesson here is that inequality reduction is a fundamental component of poverty alleviation policies. Describes the evolution of poverty, inequality and macroeconomic developments in Brazil and develops an aggregate monthly time series analysis of the determinants of poverty in the 1980-96 period. This analysis showed that higher inflation and higher unemployment imply lower per capita earnings for all deciles. The direct effects of inflation on per capita family earnings were somewhat milder and decreases as we move to the upper tail of the distribution. Poverty tend to be more adversely affected by higher inflation rates than mean incomes. Similarly, the unemployment elasticity of per capita earnings decreases as we move towards the upper tail of the distribution.