'Something extraordinary' Cash transfers lift 13.4m Mexicans out of poverty

Toothless and frail, Gloria Palacios, 84, stooped as she set up her rickety sidewalk shop in Mexico City's roughshod Doctores neighborhood.

- Oscar Lopez

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.

With their house crumbling and bills piling up, the only thing keeping them afloat is a bimonthly transfer of 6,200 pesos ($330) implemented by the government of previous president Andrés Manuel López Obrador for adults over 65.

"God bless López Obrador," said Palacios. "Without him what would we do? I think we wouldn't even have enough to eat."

Palacios is one of millions of people across Mexico who have benefited from the welfare policies of López Obrador, or Amlo as he's commonly known. And now, thanks to a report released last week by the country's national statistics agency, we know just how effective those policies were.

When Amlo took office in 2018, there were nearly 52 million people living below the poverty line; by the time he left office six years later, that number had dropped by 13.4 million, a decrease of almost 26%. Extreme poverty also dropped from nearly 9 million to 7 million.