Milenio, 23 Septiembre 2024
https://www.milenio.com/opinion/viri-rios/no-es-normal/zedillo-miente
A few months ago I had a public conversation with former President Ernesto Zedillo at the University of Chicago. The discussion had been forgotten because it was an academic space, but recently it came back to light.
I consider it important to refute, based on data and scientific evidence, the multiple lies that Zedillo issued with impunity during our conversation.
Zedillo said that poverty has not decreased more in this six-year term than in previous ones. This is false.
Poverty has been reduced more than twice as much as before. According to strictly comparable data from CONEVAL, poverty in this six-year period has decreased by 2.8 percentage points every two years from 2018 to 2022, while before it only decreased by 1.3 points (2016-2018). Now, if we consider complete six-year periods, as the economist Gerardo Esquivel has shown, while in this six-year period 100 thousand people have left poverty behind every month, during the two previous six-year periods 100 thousand people entered poverty every month.
Zedillo said that poverty only decreased in this six-year period due to the growth of remittances.
This is false. Economists Gómez and Munguía have shown that 80% of the reductions in poverty during the six-year period are explained by increases in labor income [i]. My own studies, based on the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey, estimate it at 73%. Remittances only explain 3% of the reductions in poverty.
Zedillo said that he has done “serious work” on poverty and therefore knows that poverty was only reduced by the disproportionate death of poor people during the pandemic.
This is an invention. There is no work showing that mortality differentiated by income level is a significant cause for reductions in poverty. It is true that the lack of access to health care has increased, but because poverty is a multidimensional measure, this has had almost no impact on poverty [iii].
Zedillo said that the increase in the minimum wage was irrelevant because almost 60% of the population is informal and therefore, the increases do not apply to them.
This is false. In theory, increases in the minimum wage only apply to the formal sector, but economist Ray Campos has shown that in reality increases in the minimum wage have benefited informal workers [iv]. In a similar vein, Professor Monroy-Gómez-Franco has shown that labor income has increased among all Mexicans, not just among those who earned the minimum wage [v]. By the way, informality has decreased in this six-year period to 54% and is at its lowest level in history according to INEGI.
Zedillo said that wages cannot rise because labor productivity has not increased.
This is absolutely false. Labor productivity in Mexico has increased, but wages have not. From 1990 to 2019, labor productivity increased by 19%, but wages per hour worked decreased by 9% [i]. Mexico's problem is not that workers are unproductive, but that our economic model has not allowed its productivity improvements to translate into better wages.
Zedillo said that during his six-year term he did not collect more because the price of oil fell.
This is false. The price of oil fell, but that does not mean that, according to official data from the SHCP, during his presidency non-oil tax revenues fell from 8.6 points of GDP to 8.3. Zedillo raised VAT from 10 to 15% (one of the taxes that the poor pay the most), but he did not make an effort to collect from the rich and therefore we are worse off.
Zedillo said that satisfaction with democracy in Mexico has not increased during the six-year term. This is false. According to Latinobarómetro, satisfaction with democracy has doubled during AMLO's six-year term.
Zedillo cannot be seen as a reliable source of analysis. He is and always will be a politician.
[i] Gómez, M.A. y Munguía, L.F. (2023 oct) El impacto del salario mínimo en la pobreza. CONASAMI.
[ii] Gómez Álvarez, D. (2023)¡Súbanle! Salario Digno. Editorial Debate(pg. 100). [
iii] Ríos, V. (2023 ago) Cómo se redujo la pobreza en México. El País.
[iv] Campos, R., & Esquivel, G. (2023). The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Poverty. TheJournalofDevelopmentStudies, 59(3), 360-380.
[v] Monroy-Gómez-Franco, L.A. (2024 jun) Los ingresos laborales en el sexenio. Mexico Cómo Vamos.
https://www.milenio.com/opinion/viri-rios/no-es-normal/zedillo-miente