Mexico’s Anti-Poverty Success Has a Dark Side
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration has reduced the number of poor Mexicans by favoring those who are poor in old age over those who are poor in childhood.
“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me,”
Photographer: Aidee Martinez / Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty Images
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Did Mexico figure out how to improve the lives of the poor?
Earlier this month the government’s policy evaluation unit, Coneval, revealed that 56.1 million Mexicans lived under the poverty line last year (4,158.35 pesos a month, or US $244.18, in cities and 2,970.76 pesos in rural areas), 5.7 million fewer than in 2018, the year before President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration first took root.