Economics: AMLO's wellbeing claims wearing thin
Less than nine months into President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s term of office, he officially declared that at least half of all families and 95% of poor households were benefitting from at least one of his administration’s cash-transfer programs. But mounting evidence pokes gaping holes in these and other administration claims, and the latest polling numbers show that based on their own experiences, a growing majority of Mexicans have become increasingly skeptical as well.
Findings from studies conducted by academics and prominent civil society organizations have uncovered major holes in official claims. One showed that close to 70% of the country has not received direct benefits from any of these programs at a time when 42%, or roughly 53 million Mexicans, are living below the poverty line, the segment for which such initiatives were presumably intended.
Some of the discrepancies appear to reflect an official move toward universalizing the beneficiary rolls to include urban residents above the poverty line at the expense of programs designed to benefit the poorest, marginalized people in the countryside. Another coverage gap is suggested by an Oxfam study that concluded that the vast majority of beneficiaries of the main social protection programs are either under the age of 19 or older than 70, leaving the rest of the population practically unattended.
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