Migrants save Latin American economies

By Editor-in-Chief on July 17, 2024

Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE) | July 9, 2024 | Translated from Spanish for the Red Phoenix–

Every year, Latin American migrants send billions of dollars to their families, values that serve to sustain the economies of their countries, but which, even so, do not help their governments to do anything for them.

$155 billion USD is the amount of money that, from all over the world, Latin Americans sent to their countries in 2023, a value that has grown by 8% since the previous year, according to World Bank data.

The effort is enormous and explains a good part of the situation of several countries that have managed to sustain themselves, despite the impact of several negative events. The most striking is Mexico, which has received $66.2 billion, an amount that represents 46% of its annual budget, which makes it clear that it is migrants who have managed to sustain this economy, above the NAFTA agreements that its leaders have emphasized over the years — these agreements functioning rather as mechanisms that allow the outflow of remittances.

The case of Guatemala is striking because the $20 billion that Guatemalans abroad sent to their families represents nothing more and nothing less than 132% of their budget. In the Ecuadorian case, the $5.5 billion in remittances represent 16% of the national budget.

Undoubtedly, migrants are the saviors of several Latin American economies that would be in greater crisis if it were not for these resources, but they are also, unintentionally, the promoters of the banks’ wealth, since they charge up to 7% of the values sent as transaction costs, which represent at least $4.6 billion. In the Ecuadorian case, they pocketed about $165 million.

The main beneficiaries of migrant labor are their employers in the countries where they are employed. If migrants managed to send $155 billion USD to their countries, the wealth they generated for their employers is undoubtedly enormous, much higher than that figure, an expression of the exploitation they have to suffer in order to survive in capitalist society, where they are expendable.