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Mexico looks to raise minimum wage

Friday, August 29, 2014


While Mexico is attracting record levels of foreign investment, boasts a stable economy, and is becoming an export powerhouse in areas like cars and aerospace, when it comes to one economic measure, its minimum wage, the country lags behind only Haiti in the hemisphere.

After rising pressure on the government to change that, Mexico City's leftist Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera proposed to lift the federal minimum wage to $6.33 a day for 2015, a 23 percent increase from the current $5.12 in Mexico City and enough to buy a basic basket of foods.

But critics, among them the central bank and business groups, say that lifting wages by decree will lead only to higher inflation and workers' layoffs and a loss of competitiveness against manufacturing rivals like China.

Source: Wall Street Journal