This paper investigates the sensitivity of the variable poverty facing the public policies currently adopted by the Brazilian government, focusing on four central aspects: higher education, per capita income, unemployment rate and Bolsa Família program. In recent years, the Brazilian government has shown a preferred option for reducing poverty through policies to transfer income to the poorest. Despite the weaknesses highlighted in the Bolsa Família program, the results indicate that the program has had a positive effect on poverty rates in Brazil. Furthermore, the strategies that seek to stop growth of pauperism in the history of Brazilian social development, such as GDP growth, expanding access to higher education, reduce unemployment and income transfer policies, cannot be taken as contradictory and mutually exclusive but as complementary and essential, depending on the seriousness of the problem that plagues our decades society.