What is the minimum wage?
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the minimum wage is the minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is obliged to pay its employees for the work they have performed during a given period, an amount that cannot be lowered either by virtue of a collective agreement or an individual agreement.
Since when has it existed in Mexico?
Álvaro Obregón, as general in chief of the Operations Army, issued the decree that established a minimum wage in the country for the first time on April 9, 1915.
In an environment in which the majority of the country’s working population was dedicated to day labor, the decree, authorized by Venustiano Carranza, First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, set the minimum wage for people in this activity at 75 cents a day (it is estimated that this amount would be equivalent to around 46 pesos today).
Due to the revolutionary process, this decree only applied in the states of Michoacán, Querétaro, Hidalgo and Guanajuato, and was extended as the Operations Army controlled other regions of the country.
How much is the minimum wage in Mexico currently?
The minimum wage that workers can receive is 278.80 pesos and of 419.88 pesos in the Northern Border Free Zone (ZLFN).
This amount is equivalent to about 8,480.17 pesos per month in almost the entire country, with the exception of the Northern Border Free Zone, where the minimum wage is 12,771.35 per month.
Compared to the previous year, the adjustment corresponds to an increase of 12%
Who decides the adjustment?
The increase in the minimum wage in Mexico is the result of negotiations between the federal government, through the National Minimum Wage Commission (Conasami) and the Ministry of Labor, with the employer and labor sectors.
According to official data, between 2018 and 2024 the poverty rate was reduced by 6.1 percentage points due to the minimum wage. In other words, of the 13.4 million people who escaped poverty in the period, 6.6 million can be attributed exclusively to increases in the minimum wage.
How much will the increase in the minimum wage be in 2026?
The increase in the minimum wage for next year is expected to be announced in the coming weeks. President Claudia Sheinbaum has expressed her desire for it to increase again 12% by 2026, however that rate is almost triple the current inflation.
The federal government’s objective is to recover the purchasing power of the minimum wage, which aims to ensure that 2.5 basic baskets can be purchased with this income.
If it increases 12% in 2026, the minimum wage would remain at 312.2 pesos and 470.2 pesos for the northern border.
During her presidential campaign, Claudia Sheinbaum said that the salary will continue to increase to reach the purchase equivalent of 2.5 basic baskets a day, which would represent nominal increases of 11% in the coming years.
