How One Business Leader Transformed Mexico's Minimum Wage
Former Mexican business leader Gustavo de Hoyos championed raising the minimum wage, transitioning from opposing increases to advocating for a "living wage." His efforts, combining business acumen with social responsibility, resulted in significant progress, exceeding initial targets.
When Mexico’s minimum wage climbs to 278.80 pesos per day in 2025, marking a 12% annual increase, it will represent more than a number. For Gustavo de Hoyos, a key architect of the nation’s wage reforms, it is the culmination of a decadelong effort to reverse a three-decade inertia that left Mexican workers earning less than peers in some of Latin America’s poorest nations. Now a federal legislator with the centrist Movimiento Ciudadano party, de Hoyos has transitioned from advocating for employers as head of Mexico’s influential business lobby to championing workers’ economic dignity from the halls of Congress.
Mexico’s minimum wage stagnation, de Hoyos explains, traces back to the 1980s and ’90s, when hyperinflation exceeding 100% annually forced policymakers to prioritize stability over growth. “Economic pacts were designed to contain inflation, and wage restraint became a tool,” he says. “But the policy outlived its purpose.” By 2016, Mexico’s minimum wage—pegged at 70.10 pesos per day—was not only the lowest in the OECD but trailed countries like Haiti and Nicaragua. Compounding the problem, the wage served as a benchmark for fines, tax penalties, and even union dues, creating a perverse “incentive” to keep it artificially low.
