The Mexican debt crisis and adjustment policies following the financial breakdown of 1982 had serious social consequences. Covering the administration De la Madrid (1982 – 1988) the article resumes the available information about variations in primary incomes. The distributive changes are analyzed according to the classical cleavages capital/work, formal/informal and urban/rural sector. Existing evidence suggests that members of the urban informal economy were as hard hit as the formal sector workers who experienced a halving of their remunerations within few years. Agricultural incomes seem to have been relatively protected only during the first years of the crisis. Really, a small group of entrepreneurs located simultaneously in various economically strategic positions can be identified as unequivocal beneficiaries of the crisis.
