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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Oscar Lopez in Mexico City

‘Historic’: how Mexico’s welfare policies helped 13.4 million people out of poverty

Woman holding her child in her front yard by nearby train tracks
Florencia Carmona Martinez, 32, with her daughter, Noemi, at her home in the Jordán neighborhood on Thursday, 8 December 2022 in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photograph: Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Toothless and frail, Gloria Palacios, 84, stooped as she set up her rickety sidewalk shop in Mexico City’s roughshod Doctores neighborhood. On sale: peanuts, cigarettes, chewing gum, chocolates and chips.

When asked how much she made in a day, Palacios’s disabled son Gustavo, who helps run the tiny store, simply laughed. “If we make 100 pesos ($5) it’s a lot,” he said. Happily, said Palacios, the family has a different lifeline.

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