ABSTRACT
This chapter points out that wealth disparity and United States are not recent phenomena for either country. The depth of inequality, however, has been much more visible in Mexico than in the United States. By way of comparison, surveys conducted by the United Nations indicate that the level of poverty in Mexico in 2012 surpassed the average recorded for other Latin American countries by 11 percentage points. The fact is that Mexico has long had a reputation of being a low-wage country. The social inequalities that have long existed in Mexico have drawn much criticism within the country and abroad. The issue, on the other hand, of how the Mexican middle class has fared under the neoliberal economy since the mid-1990s has drawn increasing attention from the media, academics, and opinion makers. Certainly greed and selfishness in Mexican oligarchic circles and in the corporate world constitute important contributors to Mexico's uneven development.
