"Successful policies to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely have substantially reduced poverty and income inequality," the OECD said.
In a new report the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said: "Wider access to education has allowed more Brazilians to move into an expanding number of better-paid jobs.
"However, the quality of education has not kept pace with the impressive expansion of the system. There are severe shortages in physical school infrastructure."
But the OECD, presenting its report in Brasilia, lamented that the country still had to reform its bureaucracy and fiscal policies to deal with a "fragmented" tax system.
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"The tax system ... Is characterised by a low degree of progressivity which limits its redistributive impact," the organisation said.
It added that barely half of the population worked in the formal economy and had access to credit.
The organisation, grouping the world's 34 most industrialised countries, concluded: