STOCK MARKET WATCH - Monday, 20 February 2012

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29. ‘There Is Not Enough Work’: Nearly Half of Mexicans Now Officially Poor

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12763/there_is_not_enough_work_nearly_half_of_mexicans_now_officially_poor/


A woman and her son stand in front of an abandoned home in Juarez, Mexico. According to recently released figures, more than 46 percent of Mexicans live in poverty. (PhotoSpencer Platt/Getty Images)

OAXACAO, MEXICO—The night is long and lonely and taxi driver Fernando has no choice but to endlessly troll the streets. It is the only way he can earn a living, driving from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. seven nights a week, and even then it’s barely enough to get by. “It is difficult. The salaries are low. There is not enough work. And everything is more expensive,” says the middle-aged driver as he cruises the streets of this historic southern Mexican city.

The latest figures about poverty and Mexican workers’ fate show that he understands the nation’s financial reality as well as any economist. The ranks of Mexico’s poor grew from 48.8 to 52 million between 2008 and 2010, according to figures recently released by the National Council for Social Development Policy, a federally funded agency. That meant about 46 percent of more than 112 million Mexicans were living in poverty in 2010. The government says someone is poor if they earn less than $181 a month in an urban area, and $113 in a rural area.

But the growth in poverty was uneven, according to news reports. Much of the increase was spread across large cities and in the northern states. And Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest states, was one of the five states with the greatest increases in poverty.

What caused the upward spiral in despair?
Unemployment, low wages and rising food costs are the answers offered by most experts.