Post-AMLO, Mexican household income is up and inequality is slightly down

Mexican household income has grown significantly since 2016, according to a report by the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure (ENIGH) 2024.

The report, which covered the years 2016-2024, revealed that these changes in income were driven primarily by increases in the minimum wage, the expansion of formal employment and the strengthening of social programs. The survey covers Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency as well as the last two years of former President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term.

Published in July by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), the survey reveals that between 2022 and 2024, the average quarterly household income reached 77,864 pesos, up 10.6% compared to the survey’s 2020-2022 edition.

Notably, the poorest 10% of households saw a substantial income increase since 2016 — over 35% — while earners in the top 10% saw their income drop by 8%.

Income inequality has slowly and steadily diminished since 2016, the survey showed. However, a significant income gap still remains between the highest and lowest brackets: In 2024, while the lowest-income households reported an average quarterly income of 16,795 pesos, those in the highest decile earned 236,095 pesos per quarter — roughly 14 times more.

Gender and regional inequality also persist. Between 2022-2024 women on average earned 34% less than men, meaning that for every 100 pesos a man earned, a woman earned 66 pesos. Disparity is also seen regionally, with households in the northern state of Nuevo León earning almost three times as much on average as those in Chiapas, a southern state that historically has lagged in various economic indicators. After Nuevo León, Mexico City concentrates the highest household income.

The main source of household income continues to be labor income (66%), followed by transfers (18%), which is household income that does not come directly from work activities or rental properties. It can include remittances, private or public scholarships, gifts from other households and social programs, among others.

According to INEGI, transfers recorded the greatest growth as a source of income between 2016 and 2024, with an increase of 26.5%.

As income grows, households are shrinking and getting older 

The survey reported an 8.5% reduction in household size between 2016 and 2024. During this period, the number of household members under the age of 15 decreased by 24.8%, while the number of members aged 15 to 64 decreased by an average of 5.2%.

In contrast, the number of household members aged 65 and over increased by 21.3%. During this same period, the country saw a 10.2% drop in the number of income earners per household. Furthermore, among employed household members, there was a 3.4% decrease during the same period.

Mexico News Daily

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