received benefits from particular programs. The module of social programs at the ENIGH was commissioned by SEDESOL and therefore has no coverage on programs outside the Ministry. We also incorporate some considerations on risk insurance programs that could prevent the vulnerable from falling into poverty.

In addition to the intrinsic difficulties for categorizing economic groups, there is very limited evidence on how well targeting is working in Mexico across groups because almost none of the programs collect rigorous data on beneficiaries’ income. A couple of words of caution need to be stressed before moving into the analysis: (i) some of the programs reviewed do not exist any longer, or have been configured differently; and (ii) there is always a risk of underrepresenting the coverage of social programs as the sample sizes are small and not designed to sample correctly the programs under review; in other words, most programs cover such a small proportion of the population that they may not show up significantly in the ENIGH. Nonetheless, these potential inaccuracies do not invalidate our general conclusions.

The _Oportunidades_ program, Mexico’s largest anti-poverty program, introduced in 1997 (as _Progresa_ , and recently called _Prospera_ ), was a conditional cash transfer scheme covering 5.8 million poor households in early 2014 with a budget of 38 billion pesos, or US$2.8 billion, equivalent to 0.23% of GDP.<sup>23</sup> Among other benefits, _Oportunidades_ delivered in 2014 5.9 million scholarships (4.9 million for basic education and 1 million for high school) with an average monthly transfer ranging between $165 and $1,055 pesos (US$12-78), and covered 5.9 million families with health care, including prenatal care, 1.6 million children with nutritional care, and 1.4 million children (6-59 months) with food supplements. The _Programa de Apoyo Alimentario_ (PAL) was introduced in 2006 to reach the extreme poor in remote localities not reached by the conditional cash transfer program _Oportunidades_ . In 2011 PAL covered 674,000 families with an average monthly transfer per beneficiary family of 524 pesos, or US$39). The _Programa de Apoyos Directos al Campo_ (PROCAMPO) comprises a yearly cash transfer of 1,300 pesos (US$96) per hectare to small-farmers (under five hectares) and 963 pesos (US$71) to the rest; it was introduced in 1994 to compensate agricultural workers for the opening up of agricultural markets under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 2011, it covered 2.65 million agricultural producers with an average monthly transfer per beneficiary producer of 437 pesos, or US$32. The _70 y más_ program was a federal non-contributive pension scheme offering 500 pesos monthly (US$37) to all the non-insured aged seventy or more in localities with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants. With 2.15 million beneficiaries in 2011, it was expanded to all localities in 2012 with a substantial budgetary expansion.<sup>24</sup> Finally, the _Programa de Empleo Temporal_ (PET), is a basic workfare program created in 1995 providing a maximum of 88 days of work for low wage (originally 90 percent of the minimum wage, at present 99 percent). In 2009 and 2010 it

> 23 The market exchange rate used in all figures of the described programs was $13.5 pesos per dollar.

> 24 During 2012, the coverage of _70 y más_ , a federal non-contributory pension program, was extended to all adults aged 70 years or older who were not receiving any other pension. Previously it was restricted only to those living in localities with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants. In February 2013, eligibility to the program was extended to all adults aged 65 and over and the program changed its name to _65 y más._ This paper will focus its analysis on the _70 y más_ program, since its redesign occurred just after the last available household survey, the ENIGH 2012.

18