Tax Law
September 09, 2026
Between Sisyphus and the barrel of the Danaids
The basic food basket, the minimum wage, and the true price of things
In Greek mythology, some punishments were not distinguished by the violence of a single suffering, but by the condemnation to repetition. Sisyphus had to roll an enormous stone to the top of a mountain and, when the effort seemed finally completed, the stone escaped and returned to the starting point, forcing him to start over.
For their part, the Danaids received a similar fate, as they were condemned to transport water to fill a container incapable of retaining it; they indefinitely repeated a task whose result was lost as it was performed.
There is something of these two mythological images that associates with the contemporary relationship between work, income, and cost of living. Every month, the worker converts part of their time into remuneration and, with it, needs to finance food, housing, transportation, health, and other daily needs. The following month, the cycle begins again.
For those who receive the minimum wage, the magnitude of this effort can be observed quite concretely when the price of things is no longer measured only in reais and starts to be converted into hours of work.
In 2026, the Brazilian minimum wage was set at R$ 1,621.00 per month, corresponding, according to decree no. 12,797/2025, to R$ 54.04 per day and R$ 7.37 per hour. From this value, the question ceases to be merely about the cost of the goods we consume and becomes: to what extent is the minimum wage capable of financing, in the different regions of the country, the set of needs that the Federal Constitution (CF) itself associates with a dignified existence?
One way to answer this question is to observe how much income and work time are allocated to food. According to the National Survey of the Basic Food Basket, from Conab and Dieese, in July 2026 a worker paid the minimum wage needed to work, on average, 100 hours and 24 minutes to acquire the basic food basket in the 27 capitals surveyed, which absorbed 49.34% of the net minimum wage.
The data also reveal important differences between the capitals. In July 2026, the five most expensive baskets were recorded in São Paulo, R$ 915.01, Cuiabá, R$ 881.27, Florianópolis, R$ 860.73, Rio de Janeiro, R$ 855.37, and Porto Alegre, R$ 841.94. The five least expensive were in Salvador, R$ 650.32, João Pessoa, R$ 644.04, Natal, R$ 631.51, Maceió, R$ 618.60, and Aracaju, R$ 594.07.
Between São Paulo and Aracaju, the difference was R$ 320.94 and, in work time, it corresponded to 124 hours and 11 minutes, versus 80 hours and 38 minutes, respectively. However, the comparison requires caution, as the research adopts different compositions for the baskets of the North and Northeast and the other regions. The values do not, therefore, constitute a general cost of living ranking, but reflect the set of foods defined by the methodology for each group of capitals.
Nevertheless, the contrast is relevant. The minimum wage is nationally unified, but its purchasing power is not. The same R$ 1,621.00 represents distinct efforts depending on where one lives, a difference that also appears in the evolution of prices.
Between June and July of 2026, the basket became cheaper in 26 out of 27 capitals, but, in relation to July of 2025, it had increased in 22 of them. In the accumulated total of the first seven months of 2026, there was an increase in all capitals surveyed.
This relationship between salary and purchasing power is not just economic. Article 7 of the Constitution establishes, in item IV, that the minimum wage must be capable of meeting the basic vital needs of the worker and their family, including housing, food, education, health, leisure, clothing, hygiene, transportation, and social security, with adjustments intended to preserve its purchasing power.
The enumeration shows that the constitutional parameter is not limited to subsistence and that food is only one of the needs to be financed. When almost half of the net income is consumed by the basic food basket, the data reveals something greater than the price of food itself.
This forecast is not isolated in the constitutional text. The dignity of the human person and the social values of labor are among the foundations of the Republic. In the same vein, Article 170 establishes that the economic order, based on the valorization of human labor, must ensure a dignified existence according to the dictates of social justice, while Article 193 defines the primacy of labor as the basis of the social order, aimed at social well-being and justice. The material capacity of wages therefore appears as part of a broader constitutional conception of labor, dignity, and well-being.
Minimum wage
One way to measure this parameter is the so-called minimum wage, calculated monthly by Dieese. In July 2026, for a family of four, the institute estimated the income needed to meet constitutionally foreseen expenses at R$ 7,687.01, a value equivalent to 4.74 times the official minimum wage of R$ 1,621.00.
The indicator does not constitute a legally enforceable second floor, but it offers an economic reference for the distance between the current value and the estimated cost of the needs that the Constitution attributes to the minimum wage.
This distance depends not only on the income value, but also on the purchasing power it preserves when allocated to consumption. Complementary Law No. 214/2025, which regulated the IBS and CBS, incorporated this concern by reducing to zero the rates levied on products from the National Basic Food Basket and providing for the refund of these taxes to low-income families.
The cashback, regulated in articles 112 et seq., will be based on consumption from January 2027 for the CBS and from January 2029 for the IBS, as per article 123, while the zero rate for the basic food basket is provided for in article 125. Although the tax basket is not to be confused with the one researched by Dieese and it is not yet possible to anticipate the effect of these measures on prices, they show that the ability of wages to finance daily needs is also influenced by the taxation on consumption.
The numbers shift the discussion from the nominal value of wages to what they effectively allow to be financed, as income, prices, location, and taxation combine to determine how much of the work is converted into consumption and how much can remain after basic expenses.
It is in this sense that the images from the beginning regain their strength: Sisyphus represents the effort that needs to be renewed each month, while the barrel of the Danaids translates the difficulty of making income remain. For those who live on the minimum wage, the price of things ceases to be just that indicated in reais and also begins to reflect the work time necessary to acquire them and what remains after the most immediate needs are met.
This experience is not the same for all families, as other incomes, family composition, access to public services, and housing conditions alter the budget organization, and the basic food basket itself does not intend to measure all these dimensions. Nevertheless, the comparison is revealing: in July 2026, acquiring the researched foods required 80 hours and 38 minutes of work in Aracaju and 124 hours and 11 minutes in São Paulo, although the minimum wage was the same in both cities. Perhaps the true price of things lies precisely there, not only in the value indicated on the price tag, but in the time needed to pay for it and in the portion of income that ceases to be transformed into savings, assets, or freedom of choice.
Between Sisyphus and the Danaids’ barrel, the minimum wage thus reveals a tension that goes beyond its nominal value. On the one hand, there is a national floor constitutionally conceived to ensure a broad set of needs. On the other, there are prices that vary across the territory and an income that, to a large extent, is exhausted before reaching them. The true price of things may lie precisely in this distance.
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Who wrote this column
Bruna Esteves
