The peso appe ars to have stabilized at about six to the dollar. While interest rates remain high, they are falling and values on the bolsa have risen more than 30 percent from their March lows. For the average Mexican, however, the economy remains in crisis. In th e first four months of 1995, prices rose nearly 24 percent. The interest rate on short-term government borrowing remains over 60 percent.
Economic activity is at a standstill.
Because one in two Mexicans is under 20 years of age, the country needs to create a million jobs a year just to stay even. Instead, over a half a million Mexican workers have already lost their j ob this year, and at least a quarter of a million more jobs are likely to disappear in the coming months. The austerity plan is bitter medicine for a nation where per capita real incomes are perhaps as much as 10 percent below their 1980 level. Ordinary workers and proprietors of small and mid-size businesses view the plan as an unmitigated disaster. The major opposition party, the PAN, is taking adva ntage of the situation to make political gains in state and local elections.