The increase is due to the recent surge in meat prices, which lifted the rate of inflation against which the minimum wage is indexed, the Economy Ministry said.
"Because the new value is higher than previously estimated, further budgetary adjustments will be necessary to avoid jeopardizing our primary deficit and spending ceiling targets," Waldery Rodrigues, special secretary to the Economy Ministry, said in a statement.
The government estimates that for each 1 real increase in the minimum wage, public spending on pensions and other benefits will increase next year by approximately 355.5 million reais, the ministry said. Reducing the budget deficit has been the government's No. 1 economic priority this year, and it has used and proposed a raft of measures to reduce, cap and monitor spending.
The most notable of these was a sweeping reform of the country's pension system that will save the public purse over 800 billion reais ($200 billion) over the next decade by raising the minimum retirement age and workers' pension contributions, as well as closing loopholes.