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12/09/2005 | Mexico: Latest Poverty Reports

Arturo Damm Arnal

According to a recently released World Bank study carried out with year 2000 data provided by the Mexican government, 24,182,938 Mexicans, or 24.2 percent of the population, lived in extreme poverty on less than two dollars a day.

 

Sixty-five percent of those were in urban areas, while the other 35 percent were in rural areas. In 2004, the number was reduced by 17.6 percent, to 18,443,137 people, with the percentages living in urban and rural areas remaining roughly the same.

The government has concluded, after analyzing the data, that poverty in Mexico has lessened significantly, which is certainly a notable accomplishment. To be sure, it is true that today fewer Mexicans, as much in absolute terms (18,443,137 in 2004; 24,182,938 in 2000), as relative (17.6 percent of the total of the population in 2004; 24.2 in 2000), live in poverty. But the question that should be asked is to what can we attribute the decrease? There are two possible answers. The first is that the poor are now capable, through productive work, to generate an income that permits them to buy necessities for their families. The second possibility is that because of the redistribution of income, their families can buy enough food. Whichever is the answer, the result is the same: less Mexicans suffer from hunger. Nevertheless, only in the first case is there an efficient method to battle poverty.

The redistribution of income to provide basic necessities to the poor alleviates the effects of poverty, but does not eliminate its cause, which is nothing more than the inability of the poor, through productive work, to generate sufficient income. The problem of poverty is not solved by taking from one to give to another, that is to say, by the government taking from the wealthy to give to the poor. The poor get out of poverty by having the ability to find a job or to produce products for which consumers are willing to pay and that permits them to generate sufficient income.

The question remains whether those 5,739,801 Mexicans that escaped extreme poverty between 2000 and 2004 really overcame their poverty. Are they now making enough money to permit them, in a free market, to buy the necessities that their families need? This it is the question that must be answered lest we prefer to deceive ourselves and the poor as well. If the poor have now escaped poverty because the government gives them more than it was giving them before, alleviating only the effects of poverty, they will continue being just as poor today as yesterday, with the additional problem that they are dependent on government handouts, rather than improving their lives with the dignity of a good job.

* Arturo Damm Arnal is a Mexican Economist and Philosopher devoted to journalism and college teaching.

 

Hacer - Washington DC (Estados Unidos)

 



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