Mohacsy's Safe Portfolio Member Forum

[Elroy Jetson]

While the Mexican Peso has declined $0.75 to $0.50 over the past two years, it's VERY different from when I was last there. Back when ever that was, the salarios minimos was roughly $18 a day.

Now, even with the January 1 increase, the Minimum Wage for a standard 12 hour day, thank you, is $80.04 Pesos. That's $0.35 per hour, $4.19 a day.

http://www.sat.gob.mx/informacion_fiscal/tablas_indicadores/Paginas/salarios_minimos.aspx

It used to be that 74% of Mexican made the Minimum Daily Wage, but must have changed otherwise life would be impossible. Electricity costs slightly more in Mexico than in the US, and gasoline about the same as in Texas. The only government subsidized products are now tortillas and cooking oil.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-29/workers-mexicos-border-factories-say-they-can-barely-survive-so-theyre-turning

I thought wow, with the devaluation of the Peso the Minimum Wage must now be $1 an hour - but looking it up, $0.35 - rough! That's far less money than people in China are earning.

Someone told me they had watched a show about two people applying for essentially the same job, one in Mexico who felt very lucky to get a job paying $12 a day ($1 per hour) - so she was being paid almost 2 times the minimum wage in Mexico. The American was not thrilled to be paid only $21 per hour at her same job.