Resumo:
This study examines the probability of households with labor income in the state of Bahia finding themselves in a situation of economic vulnerability between 2015 and 2022. Grounded in the critique of political economy, the research dissects the “working poor” paradox, interpreting it not as a market dysfunction, but as an expression of the superexploitation of labor inherent to dependent capitalism (Marini, 2011). From this perspective, remuneration below the value required for workforce reproduction becomes functional to capital accumulation. Methodologically, Logistic Regression (Logit) models were applied to PNAD Contínua microdata across two comparative scenarios: M1 (structural poverty, excluding transfers) and M2 (effective poverty, including transfers). The central hypothesis stipulates that the new morphology of degraded labor (Antunes, 2009) and racial asymmetries constitute barriers to overcoming material deprivation that are significantly more rigid than the mitigating capacity of social policies. Empirical results corroborate this premise, evidencing that informality and structural racism drastically increase the probability of poverty, resisting state intervention. It is demonstrated that while income transfers are vital for buffering immediate misery amidst the stability of Brazilian inequality (Barros et al., 2007), they prove insufficient to dismantle the deep-rooted determinants of vulnerability. Consequently, the study concludes that poverty in Bahia is a structural phenomenon where precarious labor insertion acts as a mechanism for perpetuating scarcity, demanding public policies that confront precarity at the productive base rather than solely in the distributive sphere.