Poverty in Mexico increased by 3.8 million people from 2018 to 2020 and in that same period, 2.1 million Mexicans moved from poverty to extreme poverty, despite the social programs of president Lopez Obrador, determined the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval).
In its Evaluation Report on Social Development Policy 2022, Coneval, the public agency in charge of measuring poverty and evaluating social programs, reported that the number of poor Mexicans went from 51.9 million to 55.7 million between 2018 and 2020, or from 41.9 to 43.9 percent of the total population.
“Within the population in poverty, it was identified that the population in extreme poverty increased the most, going from 7 percent (8.7 million people) in 2018 to 8.5 percent (10.8 million people) in 2020,” the Council indicated.
The increase in poverty was recorded in urban areas by 4.5 million new poor, rising from 34.5 million people in 2018 and to 39 million in 2020, or from 36.8 to 40.1 percent.
While in rural areas multidimensional poverty fell from 57.7 percent to 56.8 percent, extreme poverty increased from 16.2 percent to 16.7 percent, the report noted.
“In rural areas, the percentage of population in poverty did not present major changes, both in relative and absolute terms. By 2018 the proportion was 57.7 percent (17.4 million people), while by 2020 it was 56.8 percent (16.6 million people),” it detailed.
Coneval indicated that Chiapas, Guerrero and Puebla registered 75.5 percent, 66.5 percent and 62.4 percent of their population.
Despite the presidential discourse of investing more in social programs, Coneval reported that it did not identify a significant increase in people who reported being beneficiaries of any federal social development program, which in 2018 was 29.9 percent and in 2020, 30.3 percent.
Even, the Council pointed out that due to the lack of targeting of social programs, between 2018 and 2020 the percentage of the poorest people – Decile I – receiving aid from social programs dropped from 20.9 percent to 13.3 percent, while the distribution grew among the richest – Decile X – increased from 1.7 percent to 5.7 percent.
“This may be due to different factors; for example, it could be consistent with the change in the orientation of social policy, which was characterized by the substitution of programs focused on the poor population for priority programs with a universal access approach,” he explained.
On the other hand, President Obrador today highlighted the social support program and how well his government is doing, he said, for the poorest sectors.
“We are acting collectively, for example, improving the popular economy, increasing the minimum wage, pensions for 11 million senior citizens, as well as helping to improve the popular economy, with jobs for young people, for 2 million 400 thousand. In other words, we no longer have experimental programs because the government is not a research center, it is not a public university, here we have to attend to all the people. It fills me with satisfaction to be able to say that 30 million families receive support, even if it is limited, from the public budget. And I can prove it, out of 35 million”, he said.
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