With Tiny Pensions, Mexican Seniors Work for Tips Agence France-Presse
go to original April 3, 2015

An elderly woman works for tips in a supermarket in Mexico City. (Yemeli Ortega/AFP)

Prudencio Diaz, a 66-year-old one-armed retiree, stuffs groceries into bags at a Mexico City supermarket, working as a "volunteer" for tips to complement his miserly pension.

Diaz is among 22,000 seniors who toil at the end of checkout lanes across Mexico, wearing aprons and hoping generous customers will hand them a few pesos for their efforts.

The retired mechanic gets the minimum pension of 1,200 pesos ($80) per month, a bit more than half the minimum wage.

"My pension is not enough. I have no problem being a volunteer packer," the former boxer said with a smile, exposing some missing teeth.

Making between $10-$20 per day in tips, Diaz can earn the equivalent of his monthly pension in a week of packing groceries.

Only a quarter of the 11 million senior citizens in Mexico - Latin America's second-biggest economy - receive a pension.

Many do not get any retirement benefits in their less than golden years because they worked in the informal sector all their lives, or did not contribute long enough to the pension system.

Read the rest at Business Insider

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