I lived in the South (Santa Catarina) from 2003~2011. I don't know what the situation has been since, but while I lived there the living standard of people in the Southern states went up by a lot. Working class families suddenly had access to buying cars, flying both internally and abroad, and a bunch of other changes. Most of them were driven by the incredible industrial growth at the time, but the supposedly incompetent government of Lula did a great job of keeping the country's economy under control while countries like Argentina (where I grew up) went through the typical boom/bust cycle of fast-growing economies.

So yeah, this sounds to me like the grumblings of the typical political discontents who would credit Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the PSDB for anything good that happened in the country, even after 8 years of PT presidency.