La Jornada: Payments to Mexican migrants grow 62% in the US

The sum of all the salaries of Mexican immigrant workers in the United States increased by 142,483 million dollars between 2015 and 2025, going from 226,842 to 369,325 million, according to an analysis by the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (Cemla).

However, the increase, equivalent to 62.8 percent in a decade, is explained by the increase in the average salaries of these workers and not by greater employment, he points out in an analysis, since employment in that same period contracted 2.4 percent.

The document, prepared by Jesús A. Cervantes González and Juan Antonio Ortega, Cemla economists, details that the average annual salaries of Mexican immigrant workers grew 66.8 percent in current dollars between 2015 and 2025, which is equivalent to an average annual rate of 5.2 percent.

This behavior occurred in both men and women, and in those who have US citizenship as well as those who do not.

The decomposition of the increase in the wage bill shows that the increases in salaries contributed 146,829 million dollars, an amount that exceeded the total increase because the variation in employment subtracted 2,36 million dollars and the so-called interaction effect – which results from simultaneous changes in employment and salaries – deducted another 2,310.

The stagnation of employment is due, in part, to the downward trend in Mexican migration to the United States, the report states. The Mexican immigrant population in that country reached its maximum level in 2007, with 11 million 738 thousand 537 people, but began to decline as of 2014.

By 2022, the accumulated drop was one million 35 thousand 987 people, equivalent to 8.8 percent. Although a partial recovery was recorded in 2023 and 2024, the Mexican immigrant population was still 570,778 people below the 2014 level.

In terms of employment, the total number of Mexican workers employed in the United States between 2007 and 2025 remained practically unchanged, with a net change of only 523 people. This result was the product of different dynamics by gender. Employed men decreased by 529,882, a drop of 10.4 percent, while employed women increased by 530,405, an increase of 25.2.

Between 2015 and 2025, total employment fell by 174,376 workers. In that period, employees with US citizenship increased 24.3 percent, while those without it decreased 13 percentage points. Cemla points out that part of this variation reflects that some workers without citizenship acquired it over time.

Men earn 37% more on average than women

Regarding the gender pay gap, in 2025 the average salaries of men exceeded those of women by 37 percent. Despite this, the percentage increase in the female wage bill was greater, with an increase of 78.2 percent compared to 57.1 for men.

Women contributed 48,173 million dollars to the total growth of the wage bill, 33.8 percent of the increase registered in the decade.

Finally, in the same decade analyzed, annual remittances from that country grew by 35,746 million dollars.