After knowing the setting of the national minimum wage, Uruguay it was ranked second in Latin America. The last update left the minimum wage (which is taken as an indicator that serves as a guideline for the informal sector) at $21,106. The increase for 2023 was 9%.
For a large number of workers in Latin America, the new year brings with it a readjustment of the legal minimum wage. This is the case of Mexicothat despite having a 20% increase in the minimum wage as of January, this represents almost half of the nominal income guaranteed by law, for example, in Costa Rica.
Minimum wage ranking
In December 2022, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that the minimum wage would increase from 172.87 to 207.44 Mexican pesos per daywhich equates to about US$325 per month, according to estimates from bloomberg line, based on the price of the dollar in effect on December 28. The brazilian government It did the same, raising the minimum wage by 9% to reach 1,320 reais, equivalent to about US$250. Despite this increase, the legal minimum income for a Brazilian worker remains one of the lowest in the region.
Of the countries analyzed in this Statista infographic, Costa Rica has the highest minimum wage, totaling about US$603 per month as of January 2023. Others Latin American countries that guarantee a relatively high level of income to workers are Uruguay, whose minimum wage exceeds 21,100 Uruguayan pesos (about US$540 per month), and Chile, where it reaches 410,000 Chilean pesos (around US$475 per month). In Colombia, there is a salary floor of 1,160,000 Colombian pesos, which is equivalent to about US$ 242, while in Argentina converting the minimum wage of 65,427 Argentine pesos to the US currency yields only about US$189.
These estimates are based on nominal values, that is, they are not adjusted based on purchasing power or the cost of living in each economy. Therefore, the comparison can often seem unfair. Even so, in this region of the world, Venezuela stands out for its extreme difference with the rest, since its minimum wage of 130 bolívares fuertes is equivalent to about US$8.
