Mexico's annual headline inflation rose to 3.75% in October from 3.45% in September, the national statistics agency INEGI reported Monday. That's the number people feel at the market stall, the tortillería, the gas pump. It's also the number the country's central bankers had in front of them when they voted to cut interest rates anyway.
Who Has the Power
Four days ago, on Thursday, November 5, the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 6.25%. A majority of board members voted in favor of the cut despite recent increases in inflation. Nobody who buys groceries got a vote.
President Claudia Sheinbaum defended the move at her Monday morning press conference. She said the decision was due to the "good performance" of Mexico's economy. She also pointed out the cut came after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate in September; the Fed's current target range is 3.75%-4%. Asked whether Mexico's economy is doing well, she responded: "We're doing well and we're going to do better." She said Mexico "is doing well on all the economic indicators," and recalled she had said the economy would improve in the second half of 2026 as public infrastructure projects got underway.
Notice who's grading the exam. The government points to the indicators, the indicators come from the apparatus, and the apparatus declares success.
What They're Calling Good News
Sheinbaum also announced that more than 23 million people held formal sector jobs at the end of October. "I have another piece of good news," she said, adding that the Mexican Social Security Institute would release official information around midday. She put the figure at 23,088,353 and said, "It's the highest figure in history." By her count, 161,077 formal jobs were added in October and 571,277 in the first 10 months of 2026, with the number up 299,180 from October 2025.
Record formal employment means more people on the books, taxed and tracked. It says nothing about wages, hours, or who's clocking in for the boss. Mexico News Daily noted that the country's high informality rate and relatively low productivity growth remain concerns. Translation: a huge share of working people still live outside the formal system, and the record number hasn't changed that.
Cash Under the Microscope
Then there's the Digital Economy Law for Digital and Electronic Payments, approved by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies last month. It gives the federal Finance Ministry authority to determine "the strategic sectors and relevant activities in which the acceptance of digital and electronic payment methods will be the only form of payment."
The Finance Ministry decides which sectors go digital-only. Not the people paying, not the people being paid.
Sheinbaum says cash isn't going anywhere. "Cash isn't going to be phased out," she said. Yet exclusive use of digital payments at gas stations, she explained, will help "put an end to fuel theft and the illegal importation of fuel and allow complete traceability of fuel from production or importation to sale." Cash payments at toll booths will "gradually" be phased out. Complete traceability is the stated goal for fuel. Every digital-only sector is a place where a payment leaves a record.
"There is nothing to be worried about. On the contrary, it will be very beneficial," she said.
The pattern is familiar. Rates move in a boardroom, jobs get counted as trophies, and the means of paying for a tank of gas get redefined by ministry decision. Ordinary people absorb the price increases, while the people who set the terms announce they're doing well and promise to do better.
- bank of mexico
- interest rates
- inflation
- claudia sheinbaum
- mexico economy
- formal jobs
- digital payments
- federal reserve