Christmas Bonuses: While Politicians Prosper, Most Wages Remain Stagnant Victor Mayen - The News
go to original December 24, 2013

Mexico’s 128 senators received a Christmas bonus of 133,760 pesos ($10,000) each in December — on top of their normal salaries and the 121,600 pesos they received as a food subsidy over the course of the year.

The federal government paid a total of 32.6 million pesos on food subsidies and Christmas bonuses for Mexico’s senators, which is the equivalent of 504,726 days of minimum wage earnings.

As of January 2014, Mexico’s minimum wage will rise to 67 pesos ($5.15) a day in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Acapulco, Monterrey and other major cities and 64 pesos for the rest of the country.

Dolores Padierna Luna, deputy Senate coordinator for the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), said that this 3.9 percent increase in the minimum wage (about 2.5 pesos), announced by Labor Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida last Wednesday, violates a provision of the Federal Labor Law which states that the minimum wage must be sufficient for a head of household to provide for the material, social and cultural needs of their family.

Padierna Luna said that the minimum wage — as calculated from the cost of staple foods, housing, transportation and education for a household with the average number of children — should be 179 pesos a day, almost three times the minimum wage in effect during 2013.

According to a report prepared by the National Statistics, Geography and Information Institute (INEGI), 66 percent of working people, or 32.8 million people, receives insufficient income to meet their needs.

See the original at The News

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