Actually, Mexicos population living under the poverty line has increased by something like 11 million people since Nafta was introduced. The introduction of subsidised US grain imports has helped destroy the traditional farming villages and led to those farmers either being unemployed or working low-income level jobs at the large producers.
What you're seeing is that Mexicans are being pushed into low-income jobs or poverty by the domination of big business plus the dumping of subsidised US grain (in particular), which in turn fuels either economic migration to the US
or big business taking advantage of said low standard wages.
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/nafta.htm[q]
# It’s estimated that over a million US manufacturing jobs have been lost since NAFTA as companies relocated to Mexico to take advantage of $5 per day wages for Mexican workers. Without enforceable labor rights, Mexican workers cannot organize to increase their wages. The laid-off US workers usually find jobs with less security and wages that are about 77% of what they originally had.
# The trade surplus the US enjoyed with Mexico before NAFTA has become an $24.2 billion per year deficit as of 2000.
# Despite promises of increased economic development throughout Mexico, only the border region has seen intensified industrial activity. In border maquiladora factories, over one million more Mexicans work for less than the minimum wage of $5 per day today than before NAFTA. Meanwhile, NAFTA’s agricultural terms have devastated small farmers, with one million peasant farm families estimated to have been forced out of farming. The displaced campesinos are forced either into immigrating to the US or into Mexico’s overcrowded cities where unemployment runs rampant. During the NAFTA period, eight million Mexicans have fallen from the middle class into poverty.
# In addition, the increase of border industry has created worsening environmental and public health threats in the area. Along the border, the occurrence of some environmental diseases, including hepatitis, is two or three times the national average, due to lack of sewage treatment and safe drinking water.
# In preparation for NAFTA, Mexico repealed Article 27 of the Constitution, which gave people rights to communal land ownership.
# Dumping of maize in Mexico has displaced at least 500,000 farmers and is steadily eroding the genetic diversity of thousands varieties of native maize varieties.
# Health, safety and environmental laws in the three NAFTA countries have been attacked in NAFTA tribunals, where corporations demand financial compensation for public interest laws that cut into corporate profit.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3233832.stmMexico is the largest beneficiary so far of the free trade deal that the US is seeking to expand to the rest of Latin America in recent negotiations.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), signed in the late 1990s between the US, Canada and Mexico, has seen trade soar until recently thanks to lower tariffs.
But critics charge that in Mexico in particular, Nafta has brought mainly low-wage jobs at the maquiladora factories which put together goods for export, which make the country vulnerable to the vagaries of its neighbour's economy. http://www.ceip.org/files/publications/NAFTA_Report_full.aspSee page 2-3 of chapter 1 in particular;
"NAFTA has produced a dissapointingly small net gain of jobs in Mexico", "Mexican agriculture has been a net loser in trade with the United States... US exports of subsidized crops have depressed agricultural prices in Mexico...the rural poor have borne the brunt of Adjustment", "NAFTAs net effect on jobs in the United States has been miniscule", "Real wages for Mexicans today are lower than before NAFTA took effect", "Income inequality has been on the rise in Mexico since NAFTA took effect, reversing the declining trend in the early 90s"
(link to the above report & a summary;
http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC14630.htm)
The report's main findings include:
* NAFTA has not helped the Mexican economy keep pace with the growing demand for jobs, and real wages for most Mexicans are lower than they were when NAFTA took effect
* NAFTA has not stemmed the flow of poor Mexicans into the United States in search of jobs; in fact, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of migrants to the United States, despite an unprecedented increase in border control measures
* the fear of a "race to the bottom" in environmental regulation has proved unfounded. However, Mexico's evolution towards a modern, export-oriented agricultural sector has also failed to deliver the anticipated environmental benefits of reduced deforestation and tillage
The report argues that while NAFTA's overall impact may be muddled, for Mexico's rural households the picture is clear – and bleak. NAFTA has accelerated Mexico's transition to a liberalised economy without creating the necessary conditions for the public and private sectors to respond to the economic, social, and environmental shocks of trading with two of the biggest economies in the world. Mexico's most vulnerable citizens have faced a maelstrom of change beyond their capacity, or that of their government, to control.http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/mexico_naftaimpact.html (bit old)
http://www.sustecweb.co.uk/past/sustec10-1/page23.html
