Minimum wage, recovery: fact or fiction?

Finally, the presidential suggestion to increase the minimum wage by 20% was imposed.

At least that’s how it was announced. The reality is that it is not exactly like that.

The increase is actually 10% plus an Independent Recovery Amount (MIR) of 23.67 pesos for the Northern Border Free Zone and 15.72 pesos for the rest of the country.

The political use of the wage increase prevailed over the institutionality of the National Minimum Wage Commission (Conasami).

And as it happens, since the beginning of this administration, with all the government information, it is announced in the presidential “morning” conference.

Just last Sunday, the Chief Executive, during his march-government report, had expressed his suggestion for the parties to agree on a 20% increase in the minimum wage.

Previously, workers and employers had put their respective proposals on the table: 25 and 15%, respectively.

The President of the Republic, was placed in the center and as “faithful of the balance”, in the classic, neither-you-nor-me, proposed an increase of 20%.

Three days later, by unanimous vote, the Conasami council resolved to increase the minimum wage by 20% by 2023, both for the general minimum wage and for the northern border.

This means that next year a general minimum wage of 207.44 pesos per day and 312.41 for the border.

Professional minimum wages will also have a 20% increase.

This increase will keep it with the same average difference compared to the general minimum wage and contributes to the recovery of 61 occupations and trades.

According to the tripartite body, this increase will benefit approximately 6.4 million workers in the formal sector of the economy.

Conasami, chaired by Luis Munguía, calculates that, in real terms, the general minimum wage has recovered 90% of its purchasing power with the five increases that have been made during the current administration.

Conasami studies project a zero impact on inflation.

They forecast that the 20% increase could imply an increase of only 0.12%.

This is because the labor cost of the increase will be approximately 1.8% in labor costs, which in turn represent 8% of the total cost.

Where was the ball?

In politics, appearances are fundamental. Apparently, the President of the Republic made the decision to increase the minimum wage by 20%.

The Conasami and the Secretary of Labor, of Luisa María Alcalde, announce a 20% increase in salary, in an evident action orchestrated for political purposes.

The reality is that the increase is 10% plus the Independent Recovery Amount (MIR) of 23.67 and 15.72.

The political announcement will undoubtedly have a beneficial media effect for the government, which has gone to great lengths to publicize its effort to advance in the recovery of the purchasing power of the minimum wage.

The downside is that even with the increase achieved, the minimum wage will continue to lag behind the goal of achieving enough to buy two basic baskets.

According to the calculation of Citizen Action Against Poverty, with a 20% increase in the general minimum wage, 2,377 pesos a month will continue to be missing from that remuneration, that is, almost 80 pesos a day.

By the beginning of 2023, the organization projects, the cost of two basic baskets will be around 8,600 pesos.

That is why it was important to register a significant increase in the general minimum wage.

For the increase in the purpose of recovery of the minimum wage to have been effective, there would have been an increase in the Independent Recovery Amount of 100 pesos per day, that is, 3 thousand pesos per month.

That is what was required to advance in the recovery of the general minimum wage.

The challenge in this last determination was to give a definitive boost to the recovery; next year it will be more difficult to achieve what was not done this time because we will be in political-electoral times.

For now, Coparmex has already extended to the year 2026 the achievement of reaching the family welfare line. In other words, it will not be achieved in the Lopez Obrador government.

to time.

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