Shouldn't the Mexican government raise the minimum wage?

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TooooL

<<the landowner's or rich and powerful get all the money>>

That's called "capitalism", baby.

RATL

Shouldn't the US government and all governments of the world raise minimum wages?

Actually there is a Mexican government commission that revises minimum wages in Mexico every year. So, in fact minimum wages in Mexico are increased far more often than in the US.

Wages are not really set by government bureaucrats but by two factors: Supply and demand for labor, and productivity of the labor force. The Mexican Government can raise minimum wages all it want, and perhaps match the minimum wage of Luxemburg (the country with the highest per capita income in the world), but that would only create a very high unemployement rate due to the simple fact that the Mexican labor force cannot match the productivity of Luxemburg.

The way to increase wages in Mexico is to increase the productivity of Mexican workers. The most obvious ways to do this are: (1) Increase the level of education and practical training of Mexicans, (2) Facilitate the business processes in Mexico by eliminating non-productive and useless red tape, (3) Reduce the corruption tax (it affects everybody), (4) have a stable and predictable economy with low inflation and low interest rates, and (5) fight crime and improve security to make investments in Mexico more attractive.

The person talking about landowners, etc. should think about a few facts: Developed countries have about 5% of their population dedicated to farming. Mexico has about 20% of the population doing farming and still has to import a lot of agricultural products. Ethiopia has more than 80% of the population dedicated to farming. This is a measure of how productive farmers are, and at first (and second) sight countries with less but more productive farmers also have a higher standard of living. As Mexico develops, we will see more people moving away from farming activities as less and more productive farmers take over the farms.

The challenge is to educate farmers and allow land reform so that some farmers become more productive and the others move to other productive activities in manufacturing and services. This is already happening.

mrsalramey

I don't know maybe.

Dr. House

Congratulations RATL for shedding some light on the sad laboral conditions prevaling in Mexico and their root causes, their possible solutions (which will not be adopted) and the general problem over here.

Lily Pad

They should but probably won't. They don't see things the same as we in the U.S. do.

Oh_cielos

True, very complex, not solved by increasing the wages. In a single company the manager might make about 10,000 dollars a month and the janitor about 200 bucks. the way to raise the wages would be to lower the high ones, but everything will go up...
Like friend up there said, macdonalds hamburgers would cost more. Capitalism only survives if you have a country doing all the work and getting paid very little, cheap labor.
You know politicians get paid better in Mexico than in most countries? That cell phone rates are higher in Mexico than in Finland?
Very complex, lots of interests in keeping low wages... sad

s g

no, otherwise McDonald's hamburgers wouldn't taste so good.

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