Labor poverty in the country fell in one year: Coneval

Mexico City. Labor poverty – an indicator that measures the proportion of people in the total who, despite working, cannot afford the basic basket – decreased in the last year, from 33.9 to 30.9 percent of the population in urban areas and from 50.2 to 47.6 percent in rural areas, the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) reported yesterday.

Per capita labor income measured in real terms – that is, discounting the effect of inflation – had an annual increase of 8.9 percent, from 3,067.13 pesos in the second quarter of 2023 to 3,350.84 pesos in the same period this year. This was accompanied by an annual increase of 805,200 employed people, Coneval added.

At the national level, between the second quarter of 2023 and the same period this year, the labor poverty indicator showed a national decrease of 2.8 percentage points, from 37.8 to 35 percent of the population, the organization indicated when presenting the labor poverty information corresponding to the second quarter of the year.

Between the first and second quarters of 2024, working poverty decreased nationwide, from 35.8 to 35 percent. In the same period, real per capita labor income in the country increased by 2.2 percent: in rural areas the increase was 3.3 percent, and in urban areas it was 2.2 percent.

The decrease in working poverty between the second quarter of 2023 and the same period in 2024 occurred in a context in which the monetary value of the food basket showed increases of 5.8 percent and 5.7 percent in rural and urban areas, respectively, while the average annual general inflation stood at 4.8 percent, he added.

In 27 of the 32 federal entities, there was a reduction in working poverty between the first and second quarters of 2024. Durango stood out with 4.3 percentage points; Querétaro and Yucatán, with 2.8, as well as Chihuahua and Tlaxcala, with 2.7, respectively.

In contrast, the three states with the greatest increase in working poverty during the same period were Guanajuato, with 2.9 percentage points; Tabasco, with 2.7; and San Luis Potosí, with 1.7.

In the second quarter of 2024, the average real labor income of the employed population nationwide was 7,441.06 pesos per month. Employed men reported a real monthly labor income of 8,137.81 pesos and women reported 6,450.51 pesos. The gap in labor income between men and women is 1.3 times.