Mexico is currently in a debate over it's minimum wage, which is not adequate to provide for basic needs, according to critics.

Global Voices Online reported that 15 percent of the population, or about 6.7 million Mexicans, earn about $5 per hour for an eight-hour work day, according to INEGI, National Institute of Statistics and Geography, statistics.

The current wage affords the earner the ability to buy some basic food necessities and transportation but would not buy a fast-food meal, which costs about $6.

The recent attention on this has forced the government to take a harder look, but any suggestions to increase the wage have received negative reactions from businessmen, according to Fox.

Business chambers say a rise would instigate inflation, despite the knowledge that the current wage is among the lowest in the hemisphere -- and has been for some time.

"We have fallen 35 years behind in terms of wages," Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told Fox. "We can only buy 23 percent of what one could buy in the 1970s."

The minimum wage is enough to survive and encourages strong bonds between families since it is impossible to maintain an independent lifestyle.

Martina Marin Espinosa, 50, told Fox that she lives with her brothers in a slum in the outskirts of Mexico City, where she works as a street sweeper for about $5.70 per hour six days a week.

"I just work for my daughter, to get her ahead in life. I don't expect anything for myself," Marin Espinosa said.

Experts told Fox that if the families were to live independently, the minimum wage would have to be $14.50 for basic necessities, or $41.50 to include independent rent payments and other expenses.

The reason being that the cost of living is high in Mexico. Other countries like Honduras also have low wages, but the cost of living is also low.

Part of the solution for improving the lives of minimum-wage earners has to do with actually raising the wage, but the other part is to create more minimum-wage jobs and wipe out the "informal sector" of work, which includes vendors that don't pay taxes and unregistered farm workers, a businessman told Fox.