The impact of the COVID pandemic in Mexico has been of such magnitude that it has not yet reached bottom, as the effects of the crisis continue to be felt in employment, income, mental health and people’s nutrition.
The percentage of Mexicans living in poverty went from 52% to 54% between May 2020 and March of the current year. “There will be large effects on poverty that continue throughout 2021. The impacts and consequences of this crisis are yet to be seen, we have time to intervene,” said Graciela Teruel, director of the Research Institute for Development with Equity. (EQUIDE).
About 10.6 million people entered a situation of poverty, and 9.2 million in extreme poverty, according to EQUIDE estimates. For the third month of 2021, it is estimated that 54% of Mexicans suffer from this problem, 12 percentage points more than what was observed in 2018. It is an increase of 14.6 million people. 15% are in extreme poverty, against 7% in 2018.
Regarding poverty by income level, there was a jump from 49% to 63% in the reference period.
The hit of the pandemic has been strongest among Mexicans of lower socioeconomic status, which has increased the gap between rich and poor.
In May 2020, the unemployment rate was 15.5%. For December there was a decrease to 7.1%. However, in March 2021 there was a slight rebound, to stand at 7.3%. When looking at the photograph by formal and informal sector, these were 6.2% and 8.1%, respectively, explained Graciela Teruel when presenting the results of the Survey to monitor the effects of COVID-19 on the well-being of Mexican households (ENCOVID) .
These estimates are on par with others made by institutions such as the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP), Fundar and Oxfam, who recently estimated that between 8 and 10 million people may fall into poverty due to the economic crisis created for the pandemic.
The EQUIDE survey indicated that 64% of households now have lower incomes than before the pandemic, with those with the lowest socioeconomic status –E and D- registering the greatest loss (70%). In contrast, 12% of the population with a higher socioeconomic level said they had recovered.
In households at the lowest levels, 68% said they had not recovered their employment, compared to 32% who said they had partially or fully recovered their job.
“There are job losses throughout the entire income distribution, even at high levels,” said the director of EQUIDE.
In 2020 the Mexican economy had a decline of 8.5%; This year a growth of between 5 and 7% is expected, according to official estimates. It should be remembered that Mexico is one of the countries that gave minimal support to the productive sector to overcome the effects of the pandemic.
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Food safety and health
Food safety is a “red light” presented by ENCOVID. Of the 45% of the population with access to adequate food in 2018, at the end of March 2021, this figure was 27%.
Mild food insecurity was 36%, moderate 20% and severe 17%. “We are talking about people who are hungry, who have spent the last days without eating. This has to do with people who see reduced not only the quality of the food they eat, but also the quantity ”, warned Teruel.
Regarding the expenditure on medical care for coronavirus -without counting the cost of the detection tests-, 5% of the surveyed population said that they did not spend anything, 14% allocated less than 1,000 pesos, 43% used between 1,000 and 10,000 pesos; followed by 28% who said they had spent between 10,000 and 50,000 pesos. 6% of the population used between 50,000 and 100,000 pesos and only 2% said they spent more than 100,000 pesos on medical care.
One in three Mexicans suffers from severe anxiety symptoms. By socioeconomic level, Teruel stressed, in March of this year, 40% of the people with the lowest level presented a severe picture of anxiety; in the case of middle-level people, it was 31% and 21% in the levels of higher purchasing power.
