Low Economic Growth Traps 83 Percent of Mexico's Population in Poverty Patricia Munoz Rios - La Jornada
go to original May 3, 2015

In the developing world, low-wage labor is a main source of income for billions of people. Oftentimes, the industries that employ them operate in the shadows where they avoid paying taxes and disregard environmental and health regulations. CCTV America's Franc Contreras reported from Mexico City. (CCTV)

In Mexico 83 percent of the population lives in monetary poverty, a figure which, due to low economic growth and low incomes for Mexican citizens, has only risen in the last 12 years, said the Ibero-American University of Puebla (UIA)'s Wage Monitoring Center upon releasing its 2015 report.

During the report's presentation – which was also broadcast online from UIA – Miguel Reyes Hernández, the Center's director, suggested that “poverty thrives in [Mexico] because workers are poorly compensated”, such that 47.6 percent of formally employed workers earn the minimum wage.

Reyes Hernández explained that poor working class conditions exist throughout the country because living standards are “getting worse”, general and minimum wages amount to less and less, and the purchasing power of those wages has plummeted. As a consequence, the number of people living in poverty in Mexico is constantly increasing, such that from 2000 to 2012, [those living in poverty] went from 70 to 83 percent of the population.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Chris Brown

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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