MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican Finance Minister Arturo Herrera said on Twitter on Tuesday that a proposed daily minimum wage hike of 20% is part of a strategy to strengthen workers' purchasing power without fanning inflation or hitting jobs.
The second consecutive major wage increase could make it challenging for the central bank to keep core inflation under control, experts said.
The daily minimum wage will be 123.22 pesos ($6.36) in 2020; in the northern border region, where it was raised by 5%, it will be 185.56 pesos. Nearly 11 million Mexican workers earn the equivalent of a minimum wage.
"This is a historic increase, the biggest in 44 years," Herrera said in a string of posts on Twitter that were later deleted.