In 2022, it was reported that ten percent of the Mexican population with the highest monthly income made, on average, almost 20 times more money than the ten percent of the population with the lowest income. While a person in the highest earning segment of the population (decile X) received approximately 20,339 Mexican pesos per month, a person in the decile with the lowest monthly income (decile I) earned nearly 1,191 pesos.

In that same year, it was estimated that 36 percent of the population in Mexico lived in poverty. Chiapas was the state in Mexico with the highest average poverty rate, with 60 percent of the population in this state classified as living in poverty.

In Mexico, as of 2022, the bottom 50 percent, which represents the population whose income lied below the median, earned on average 2,076 euros at purchasing power parity (PPP) before income taxes. Meanwhile, the top ten percent had an average earning of 111,484 euros, 53 times over than the average earning of the bottom half. Further, the bottom 50 percent accounted for -0.3 percent of the overall national wealth in Mexico, that is, they have on average more debts than assets.

In 2022, about 40 percent of adults in Mexico held a net worth under 10,000 U.S. dollars. In contrast, merely 393,000 Mexicans (that is, 0.4 percent of the total) had a net worth of over one million U.S. dollars. Mexico is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America regarding wealth distribution, with 78.7 percent of the national wealth held by the richest ten percent of the population.

The minimum salaryThe minimum wage per day guaranteed by law in Mexico was decreed to increase by 22 percent between 2021 and 2022, reaching 172.87 Mexican pesos in 2022. In the Free Zone located near the northern border the minimum daily wage was raised to 260.34 Mexican pesos.This represented the fourth consecutive incrase since 2019, but could prove to be insufficient to maintain the wellbeing of Mexican workers after the soaring inflation rate registered in 2022 and the economic impact of the COVID-19 in Mexican households. The legal minimum salary has a long history in the North American country, it was first implemented with the approval of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States in 1917. Income inequality in Latin AmericaLatin America, as other developing regions in the world, generally records high rates of inequality, with a Gini coefficient ranging between 38 and 54 among the region’s countries. Moreover, many of the countries with the biggest inequality in income distribution worldwide are found in Latin America. According to the Human Development Report 2019, wealth redistribution by means of tax transfers improves Latin America's Gini coefficient to a lesser degree than it does in advanced economies. Wider access to education and health services, on the other hand, have been proven to have a greater direct effect in improving Gini coefficient measurements in the region.

As of the third quarter of 2023, in Mexico, Mexico City and Nuevo León reported the highest average monthly salary, reaching over 19,000 Mexican pesos each. Additionally, Baja California and Baja California Sur ranked third and fourth in terms of highest incomes, with an average monthly salary of 18,868 and 18,596 Mexican pesos, respectively.

As of the last quarter of 2023, the Mexican population receiving an average monthly salary recorded the lowest amount for the females aging 15 to 24 years with 4,740 Mexican pesos. On the other hand, the topmost value was also for the females between 65 and 74 years with 8,690 pesos.

Between 2010 and 2022, Mexico's data on the degree of inequality in income distribution based on the Gini coefficient remained equal compared to the previous period, at 45.4. The Gini coefficient measures the deviation of the distribution of income (or consumption) among individuals or households in a given country from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 represents absolute equality, whereas 100 would be the highest possible degree of inequality. Poverty still one of the major problems During the last four years, the minimum wage in Mexico has been increasing substantially, going from 141.7 to 248.93 Mexican pesos per day. The main reason for this was to pull people out of poverty. In 2014, the population under the poverty line was over 46 percent, that is almost half of Mexicans living with conditions of vulnerability. Eight years later, the rate was about 36 percent, still a significant number of people living in poverty but a considerable decrease.
Gender inequality Mexico does not score particularly well in gender inequality, in fact, it ranks 33rd in the world in the Global Gender Gap Index. Despite some advances, the Aztec country performs poorly in most of the metrics that measure inequality. During late 2022, women recorded a pay disparity of –13.15 percent when compared to them male counterparts. That is to say, that for the same job a woman is paid 87.85 MXP when a man receives 100 MXP.

In the first quarter of 2024, per capita wage income in Mexico City stood at 4,658.04 Mexican pesos, a considerable growth compared to the previous quarter and the largest income per capita registered.

As of 2022, the average income per Mexican household was leading in the state of Baja California Sur with an amount of 91,417 Mexican pesos per quarter, followed by monetary amount was Mexico City.

In 2023, the Mexican telecommunication sector (which encompasses mobile and fixed-line telecommunication as well as pay TV) generated revenues of 577.3 billion Mexican pesos, out of which over 340 billion was generated by the mobile subsector.

The minimum wage per day guaranteed by law in Mexico was decreed to increase by approximately 12 percent between 2024 and 2025, reaching 278.8 Mexican pesos in 2025. The Northern Free Zone located near the northern border was the exception, where the minimum daily wage increased to 419.88 Mexican pesos. Education and income disparity The income distribution is entirely a new story than minimum wages, in fact, there are many factors that influence the level of salaries for Mexican workers. One of the main differences is by the number of schooling years, someone with more than 18 years of study earns on average double than employees with seven to nine years. Moreover, the area of study, while statistics and finance mean salaries, the highest wages by degree, are above 30,000 Mexican pesos per month, others such as performing arts and theology rank as the lowest paying degrees in Mexico.
Poverty still among the main problems
Despite one of the main reasons for minimum wage increases being moving people out from poverty conditions, poverty continues to be one of the main problems Mexican society faces. The number of people living under poverty conditions has decreased by 8.54 million inhabitants from 2014 to 2022, nonetheless, the figure is still higher than 46.5 million. The poverty rate varies among states, with Chiapas leading the ranking with 67.4 percent of the population under such conditions, while both Baja California and Baja California Sur recorded less than 14 percent.

According to the survey conducted among delivery workers in Mexico City in 2021, they received an average income of 2,562 Mexican pesos per week. Furthermore, looking at the distribution by net profit, it can be seen that 21 percent of respondents earned between four and six thousand Mexican pesos per month. The second most common income band was from two to four thousand pesos, with 16 percent of respondents claiming to receive such monthly income.

During the time shown, the average monthly wage in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala has experienced a general positive trend with the highest value recorded in the first quarter of 2024 with 4,883 Mexican pesos.

According to the 2022 National Survey on Households Income and Expenditures (ENIGH), households spent an average of 39,963 Mexican pesos per quarter. The largest expenditure was for food, beverage, and tobacco, with an average of 15,059 pesos. In contrast, the smallest expenditure was for health care, with 1,345 pesos being spent in average per quarter.

In 2021, the film distribution in Mexico generated 1.66 billion Mexican pesos in revenue – which amounts to only half of the 3.5-billion-peso revenue recorded prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, the movie theater segment in Mexico saw its revenue decrease by 53 percent in 2021.

This statistic shows the revenue of Coca-Cola FEMSA, traded publicly as KOF, in the first three months of 2017, broken down by region and measured in million Mexican pesos. During the time period considered, Coca-Cola's revenues in Mexico and Central America amounted to more than 20 million Mexican pesos.

Mexico City's GDP amounted to approximately 3.81 trillion Mexican pesos in 2023. During that year, the GDP of the city corresponded to 14.8 percent of the national gross domestic product. This share turned the capital into the federal entity with the largest contribution to Mexico's economic output. On the flip side, the eastern state of Tlaxcala only represented 0.6 percent of the national GDP.