En varios barrios de la Ciudad de México se pueden apreciar claramente los símbolos de la vida de clase media.
Las omnipresentes cafeterías Starbucks —donde el café y los frappuccinos no son precisamente baratos— suelen estar abarrotadas. Muchos padres llevan a sus hijos a colegios privados en coches nuevos. Los centros comerciales rebosan de compradores que buscan un nuevo iPhone o la última prenda de moda imprescindible.
La Ciudad de México es una ciudad enorme con muchos barrios humildes y trabajadores mal pagados, pero es evidente que un número significativo de chilangos prosperan bastante. Claro que esto no sorprende, dado que hablamos de la capital de una de las 15 economías más grandes del mundo.
Después de hablar con varios trabajadores con bajos salarios de la Ciudad de México a principios de este año y escribir sobre algunos de los desafíos financieros que enfrentan , mi enfoque se desplazó hacia la clase media mexicana, no solo en la capital sino también en otras partes del país.
Para comprender mejor a este sector de la población, realicé mucha investigación en línea, pero también planteé las siguientes preguntas a más de una docena de mexicanos que viven en diversas partes de México, incluyendo Ciudad de México, Mérida, Pachuca y San Miguel de Allende.
- ¿Cuánto necesita ganar una persona soltera al mes para formar parte de la clase media en México?
- ¿Y una familia con dos hijos en edad escolar?
- ¿Qué significa pertenecer a la clase media?
¿Qué se considera un ingreso de clase media para una persona?
Las respuestas a esta pregunta oscilaron entre 12.000 pesos (unos 650 dólares estadounidenses) en el extremo inferior y 40.000 pesos (unos 2.200 dólares estadounidenses) en el extremo superior.
“En mi opinión, ser de clase media no se trata solo de ingresos”, dijo un encuestado en Mérida.
“Hay otros códigos que debemos tener en cuenta. Pero en términos monetarios diría que entre 15.000 y 30.000 pesos”, dijo.
Una persona encuestada en San Miguel de Allende opinó que una persona soltera podría considerarse parte de la clase media en un pueblo pequeño como Amealco, Querétaro, con un salario mensual de tan solo 12.000 pesos. Sin embargo, en ciudades como León o Celaya, en el estado de Guanajuato, una persona necesitaría ganar entre 18.000 y 20.000 pesos, afirmó.
¿Cuánto gana una familia de clase media?
Las respuestas a esta pregunta oscilaron entre 35.000 pesos (unos 1.900 dólares estadounidenses) y 90.000 pesos (unos 4.900 dólares estadounidenses).
Una persona encuestada en San Miguel de Allende afirmó que un ingreso familiar de entre 35.000 y 45.000 pesos mensuales podría ser suficiente para que una familia de cuatro personas se considere de clase media. Sin embargo, recalcó que el ingreso necesario para vivir como clase media depende de la región de México donde resida.
Otra persona encuestada en San Miguel de Allende afirmó que un ingreso familiar de 60.000 pesos mensuales clasificaría a una familia como de clase media alta en una ciudad pequeña de México. El mismo ingreso en la Ciudad de México la clasificaría como de clase media baja, añadió.
Un encuestado en Pachuca dijo que una familia necesitaría un ingreso familiar de 55.000 pesos mensuales para alcanzar el estatus de clase media en esa ciudad, la capital del estado de Hidalgo.
La cifra de 90.000 pesos fue citada por un encuestado en la Ciudad de México, quien señaló que el pago de una hipoteca podría ser uno de los diversos gastos mensuales de una familia de clase media. La cuota mensual de una hipoteca a 20 años para un departamento de 4 millones de pesos (US$217.000) ronda los 40.000 pesos .
¿Qué significa ser de clase media en México?
Las respuestas a esta pregunta fueron muy variadas, pero un denominador común fue que los miembros de la clase media en México tienen la capacidad de acceder a bienes, servicios y experiencias no esenciales.
“Creo que la clase media es una construcción [social]”, dijo un encuestado en Mérida.
“In that sense, I think it’s made up of an education, a shared culture and material goods,” he said.
Being part of the middle class entails “a formal education — it doesn’t need to be private — being able to work and earn enough money to not just survive but to save as well, and being able to access vacations, social security, transport and culture,” the same respondent said.
Middle-class archetypes
A respondent in San Miguel de Allende described what she considers to be the hallmarks of typical lower-middle-class and upper-middle-class Mexicans.
To be considered lower-middle-class in Mexico, she said, a person or family should own a hatchback or sedan-type car; have a home in “Infonavit areas” (think residential developments with modest tract/cookie cutter housing); be able to regularly buy a good variety of groceries at low-cost supermarkets; take an annual vacation to a beach in Mexico; eat out at a moderately-priced restaurant once a month; and go out to a bar or the movie theater two or three times a month.
A lower-middle-class person doesn’t have private health insurance, and unexpected expenses such as a car repair could throw his or her finances “off balance,” the respondent said.
Similarly, The Economist reported in 2021 that “membership of the middle class in Mexico is far more precarious than in richer places.”
“An economic shock — a family illness or a recession — can send people tumbling back into poverty,” The Economist wrote.
The San Miguel de Allende respondent said that an upper-middle-class person or family has two cars; owns a property that is nicer than “an Infonavit-style home; can regularly buy a good variety of groceries at supermarkets such as H-E-B; sends their children to private schools and can afford after-school activities; goes on vacation within Mexico twice a year; eats out at good restaurants two or three times a month; has private health insurance and car insurance; and buys books and spends “a little more” than most on cultural activities.
Travel, leisure, culture … and money left in the bank
Among the other responses to the question about what it means to belong to the middle class in Mexico were:
- Having a membership to a gym or pool.
- Having at least two decent cars.
- Having a car, medical insurance, a phone, internet and being able to afford to send children to private school.
- Having the capacity to save or invest.
- Being able to cover basic needs such as housing, health care and education, and having “a certain margin” to save and to do “what makes you happy.”
- Having your own business.
- Being able to travel abroad two to three times a year.
- Being able to eat out at restaurants every weekend.
- Being able to go to concerts, museums and the cinema.
- Having healthy food at home.
‘Quantifying the Middle Class in Mexico’
As is evident from the responses above, there are a variety of views about how much an individual, or a family, needs to earn to be considered part of the middle class in Mexico.
But are there official income parameters that can help define who is, and who is not, part of the middle class? During my research, I discovered that the answer is “kind of.” Unfortunately those official parameters are now outdated, and new ones aren’t due to be published until the end of the decade.
The 2021 report “Cuantificando la Clase Media en México 2010-2020” (Quantifying the Middle Class in Mexico 2010-2020) by Mexico’s national statistics agency INEGI states that the average monthly income of a middle-class household was 22,297 pesos (about US $1,200), offering an imperfect but at least tangible income threshold for entry to la clase media mexicana. For urban middle-class households, the average income was slightly higher at 23,451 pesos per month, while for rural middle-class households it was somewhat lower at 18,569 pesos.
Considering that inflation in Mexico has been quite high in recent years, and that the minimum wage almost doubled between 2021 and 2025, a family’s household income would now need to be considerably higher in order for that family to be considered part of the middle class.
Still, an average household income of just over 20,000 pesos in 2021 would indicate that INEGI’s threshold for reaching the middle class in Mexico is lower than that of Mexico News Daily’s respondents.
In 2021, INEGI said that the average upper class household income was 77,975 pesos per month, an amount within the range of what MND respondents said a family would need to earn to be considered middle class. With prices having risen considerably in recent years, it would be reasonable to say that such household income in Mexico City and other expensive areas of Mexico would not make a family upper class in 2025.
What percentage of Mexicans belong to the middle class?
In 2020, 42.2% of households* in Mexico and 37.2% of Mexican people belonged to the middle class, according to INEGI. Those percentages declined compared to 2018, mainly due to the impact of the COVID pandemic on the Mexican economy in 2020.
INEGI hasn’t published data on the size of Mexico’s middle class in more recent years, but it would be reasonable to assume that the the middle class is growing again given that the economy has recovered from the pandemic-induced downturn.
Still, not everyone agrees that around four in 10 people are middle-class in Mexico, which itself is classed as an “upper-middle income” country by the World Bank.
In an article published in 2022 in the magazine “ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America,” Mexican political scientist Viri Ríos wrote that only 12% of Mexicans were middle-class based on a poverty measurement method developed by the Council of Evaluation of Social Development of Mexico City. Ríos contended that said measure — which takes hourly wages and housing conditions, among other factors, into account — was the best way to measure the size of the middle class.
“Mexico is not a country of middle classes,” she wrote.
“It is a country in which to be middle class is the exception, a level of lifestyle to which very few people have access,” Ríos wrote.
In The New York Times in 2020, in an opinion article headlined “No, you’re not middle class,” she wrote:
“In Mexico, many believe they belong to the middle class, but that’s not the case. Sixty-one percent of the population identifies as such, but only 12% actually are. Half the country lives under a serious misunderstanding about their income level — a confusion shared equally by the rich and the poor.”
In contrast, economist Valeria Moy wrote in a 2021 article for the El País newspaper that “all the available data … shows that Mexico, to a large extent, is a middle-class country.”
Whether you agree more with Ríos or more with Moy might be shaped, at least in part, by where you live in Mexico and/or the parts of the country you have visited, as INEGI’s data shows that the prevalence of the middle class varies considerably across the nation.
* Per the 2020 statistics, 56.6% of Mexican households belonged to the lower class, while just 1.2% belonged to the upper class. Social mobility in Mexico is considered to be low, with a strong majority of people remaining in the social class in which they were born.
Mexico’s most and least middle-class states
Almost six in ten households in Mexico City are middle class, while fewer than one in five households are middle class in the southern state of Chiapas.
That data also comes from INEGI’s 2021 “Quantifying the Middle Class” report.
INEGI’s data shows that 15 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities have a higher percentage of middle-class households than the national average of 42.2%.
Mexico City is at the top of the list, with 58.9% of households considered middle class. That data might help explain the apparent frappuccino boom.
More than half of all households in six other states are middle-class, according to the INEGI data. They are Colima (54.6%); Jalisco (53.6%); Baja California (53.1%); Sonora (51.9%); Baja California Sur (51.1%); and Querétaro (50.5%).
The other states where the percentage of middle-class households is higher than the national average are Sinaloa, Nayarit, Aguascalientes, México state, Quintana Roo, Nuevo León, Michoacán and Chihuahua. Again, it is important to stress that perceptions of who belongs to the middle class vary, and INEGI’s threshold for entry to said class is considered low by some.
In Mexico’s three poorest states — Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca — the percentage of middle-class households is significantly lower than the national average.
In Chiapas, just 19.5% of households made the grade in 2020, whereas the figures in Guerrero and Oaxaca were 24% and 25.6%, respectively.
In 2019, human development in certain municipalities in those three states was on par with human development in the African nations of Burundi, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, according to a United Nations report.
Mexico vs. the United States and Canada
Unsurprisingly, the minimum income level required for a household to qualify as middle class in the United States and Canada is higher than in Mexico.
According to Pew Research Center, middle-income households in the United States — those with an income that is two-thirds to double the U.S. median household income — had incomes ranging from about $56,600 to $169,800 in 2022.
The lower figure is almost four times higher than the average annual middle-class household income in Mexico in 2020, which was around US $14,500 (using the current exchange rate).
Also according to Pew, the share of Americans who were middle-class in 2023 was 51%, almost 14 points higher than in Mexico.
In Canada, households with income between CAD $52,875 to $141,000 (US $37,770 to $100,725) qualify as middle-class, according to an OECD definition.
The lower figure is around 2.5 times higher than the average annual middle-class household income in Mexico.
Living expenses are of course higher in the U.S. and Canada than in Mexico — as are salaries.
Which workers generally belong to Mexico’s middle class?
A majority of Mexican workers — almost 55% in Q2 of 2025 — are employed in the informal economy, and most of those people don’t qualify as members of the middle class based on their income levels.
Among the people in formal sector jobs who would normally qualify as members of Mexico’s middle class are medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, finance sector workers and other tertiary-educated professionals.
Many business owners, including restaurateurs and retail store proprietors, would also be considered part of the middle class, as would well-paid workers in Mexico’s large manufacturing sector.
Dado que México es una de las 15 economías más grandes del mundo —y aspira a convertirse en la décima en los próximos años— , sin duda existe potencial para que crezca la clase media mexicana.
Reducir la informalidad en el mercado laboral —un reto nada fácil— será clave para lograrlo.
Un aumento de la inversión extranjera, junto con una distribución más equitativa de dicha inversión en todo México —tal como lo busca el gobierno federal—, también podría contribuir al crecimiento de la clase media. Un resultado positivo de la revisión del T-MEC el próximo año podría brindar la certidumbre necesaria para atraer más inversión extranjera, lo que a su vez ayudaría a la economía mexicana a crecer, a generar empleos y a impulsar el ambicioso Plan México .
“México debería ser un país rico”, escribió Viri Ríos, politólogo mexicano, en el diario El País en 2021 .
“Tenemos todo para ser uno”, escribió, citando factores como la sólida relación comercial de México con Estados Unidos, su gran población en edad laboral y la fuerte ética de trabajo del pueblo mexicano.
El atractivo de México como destino turístico, el amplio potencial del país en energías renovables , un auge de la relocalización de empresas en zonas cercanas a la costa aún incipiente —aunque no garantizado—, una gobernanza estable y responsable y posiblemente incluso la minería de litio , entre otros factores, también podrían ayudar a que México se convierta en un país más próspero con una clase media más amplia en los años y décadas venideros.