LatinNews Daily - 2 September 2024

*Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has highlighted the reduction of poverty and inequality as the greatest achievement of his government. Speaking to crowds in the main square, or Zócalo, in Mexico City (CDMX) for his final state-of-the-nation address, López Obrador stated that 5.10m people had been lifted out of poverty between 2018, when he took office, and 2022, according to figures from the national statistics institute (Inegi). He added that World Bank figures indicated even more people had been lifted out of poverty, showing that the number of people living in poverty in Mexico had dropped from 34.3m in 2018 to 24.7m in 2023, meaning 9.5m had been lifted out of poverty over this period. López Obrador stated that, while during the terms of his predecessors, Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), “each month 100,000 people fell into poverty, in our government, on the contrary, every month 100,000 Mexicans were lifted out of poverty”.