Nursing now has a salary floor. Understand the new Law

The new minimum salary for nurses in Brazil will be R$4.750 reais. The rule, which sets the minimum amount to be paid to midwives, nursing technicians and assistants, originally came out of Bill (PL) 2564/2020, and was sanctioned – with restrictions – on Thursday (04) by President Jair Bolsonaro. Until then, this class of workers had not minimum wage determined by law or convention.

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What the Law establishes?

Each nursing professional must have a minimum wage, divided into categories. See the values:

Nurses: BRL 4.750
Nursing technicians: R$3.325
Nursing assistants: R$2.375
Midwives: R$2.375

Not everything was approved

The proposal to annually correct the minimum wage for nursing professionals based on the Consumer Price Index (INPC) was blocked by the president, and the new rules were converted into Law 14.434/2022.

The government argued that it vetoed linking the readjustments to inflation because this could present a risk of “difficulties for monetary policy” and a succession of even greater price increases. The federal law came into force this Friday (5), following publication in the Official Gazette of the Union.

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Technical decision

The sanction of the measure had been recommended by officials from the Ministry of Health, which makes up the Department of Health Economics, Investments and Development (Desid). On the 17th, the project had been approved with a large majority (449 votes to 12) in the Chamber of Deputies.

Context of the pandemic

For the rapporteur of the text in the Senate, Carmen Zanotto (Cidadania-PR), the measure is an important measure to face the “irreparable losses for hundreds of families” which include some nursing professionals during the Covid-19 crisis. According to the parliamentarian, 872 deaths of professionals in this area occurred “due to precarious and unhealthy conditions”. She also highlighted that 81,5% of workers in the category are female.