The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced this Wednesday a 13% increase in the minimum wage for 2026, the second of her term, in which she has promised that the basic salary will reach in 2030 to buy 2.5 basic baskets.
With the increase, the national minimum wage will reach 315.04 pesos daily ($17.26) nationwide starting in January, up from a previous figure of 278.8 pesos ($15.27), while in the northern border of Mexico it will rise to 440.87 pesos ($24.15) above the current 419.88 pesos ($23).
“Very good news. An agreement between the business sector and the workers, the workers of Mexico,” declared the president in her morning conference, as the increase had the support of all sectors: the Government, the unions and the businessmen.
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The monthly basic salary is equivalent to 9,582.47 pesos ($524.96) and on the border with the United States to 13,409 pesos ($734.59), while the increase is more than three times what the Government estimates for inflation, which in the first half of November was 3.61%.
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The announcement comes after a 110% increase in real terms of the minimum wage during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), from the same party as Sheinbaum, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), with which they seek to end a stagnation of nearly three decades.
“The minimum wage is increasing, from 2018 to date, by 154%,” stated the Mexican governor.
The salary increase will benefit 8.5 million workers, detailed Marath Bolaños, Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare, at the conference.
The official highlighted that the purchasing power of the minimum wage will have grown 154% since 2018.
“In real terms, this is the highest level of salary recorded since 1980, thus also going back to what was the process of wage precariousness during the neoliberal period,” the official pointed out.
In the case of the free zone of the northern border, he noted, the increase remains above the historical maximum reached in 1976.
Likewise, it was pointed out that the real average salary of formal workers, registered with the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), has grown by a real 27.5% since 2018.
For his part, Francisco Cervantes, president of the Business Coordinating Council, specified that this type of agreement “is the result of the important effort” they have developed in recent years to enrich social dialogue in the country and improve the purchasing power of Mexican workers.
“The arrangement we need to reach in the short and medium term should make the generation of formal and productive jobs feasible from 2026 onwards and maintain an environment conducive to the sustainability and growth of companies,” said the executive.
