500K residents living below poverty level in Baja California

SAN DIEGO ( Border Report ) — About half a million people live below the poverty level in Baja California, including 62,000 living in “extreme poverty” in cities such as Tijuana and Mexicali, said Netzahualcóyotl Jáuregui Santillán, the state’s Secretary of Wellbeing.

“The goal is to keep driving down the numbers,” said Jáuregui Santillán. “As a state, we’re trying to bring these people out of poverty, during the first two years of the current administration, we’ve been able to lower the number of people living in poverty.”

He said that at the start of this decade, about 800,000 people were living below the poverty line in Baja.

“We are also working with our state’s congress to institute more rights for children, young people, persons with disabilities and seniors so we can help even more people who are vulnerable.”

Jáuregui Santillán said the figures are provided by Mexico’s National Council for Social Development, numbers published by Statista Research Development .

Those statistics show the poorest states in Mexico are Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca.

Still, the number of people living in poverty in Baja California overall is among the lowest in Mexico.

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