• MILLIONS: The number of Mexicans living in poverty could increase in at least 8.9 million due to the coronavirus shock which makes indispensable a strategy to help most vulnerable populations and recover the path to economic growth, Mexico’s social development agency (CONEVAL) said today.
• PROJECTIONS: Mexico’s current income-poverty rate is 48.8% of the population (61.1 million Mexicans) but the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic could increase it to at least 56% of the population (70 million Mexicans), according the new projections released by CONEVAL.
• PANDEMIC: “This crisis will mainly affect the most vulnerable population groups and may reverse progress in social development”, CONEVAL said today. “The crisis could cause the population that in 2018 was not poor or vulnerable, to have impacts that lead them to (those) conditions”
• MEASURES: Since the beginning of the pandemic, the López Obrador administration has refused to provide any fiscal relief to the private sector other than promising 1 million micro loans (US $1,000 each) for small firms that many experts consider insufficient.
