Mexico City – The Mexican government, labor and business sectors last week agreed to raise the daily minimum wage by 20% in 2020, the second consecutive major increase aimed at restoring the purchasing power of the country’s lowest earners.
On December 16, 2019, the Mexican National Commission on Minimum Wages (Comisión Nacional de los Salarios Mínimos or CONASAMI) issued a resolution decreeing an increase in the Daily General Minimum Wage (DGMW) applicable in Mexico in 2020.
As of January 1, 2020, the minimum wage in most of the country will increase to 123.22 pesos (about $6.50 USD) a day. That is a boost from the 102.68 peso minimum wage prevailing this year.
But the 20 percent increase falls short of the 127.00 pesos a day minimum that the Mexican Employers Federation, or Coparmex, has been pushing for to reach what it considers an acceptable level of well-being for the nearly 11 million workers who earn minimum wage.
While the 2020 minimum wage increase will bring the hike to almost 40% in just more than a year, and is well above the 3% annual inflation rate, it is barely enough to keep one person living above the poverty line, much less enough to support the worker’s family.
The minimum wage in a narrow stretch of territory along the border with the United States is higher than in the rest of the country, due to higher living costs. Starting next year the border minimum will rise about 5%, to 185.56 pesos per day ($9.75 USD).
The aforementioned DGMW increases include an ‘Independent Recovery Amount’ of 14.66 pesos to adjust for 2019 global economic and political events, which affected the currency exchange rate between Mexican pesos and U.S. dollars.
