MEXICO CITY — The amount of money Mexicans sent home suffered its sharpest drop on record in July as the U.S. economy slowed and the dollar fell, Mexico’s central bank reported Monday.
Remittances — Mexico’s second-largest legal source of foreign income after oil — dropped by 6.9 percent in July compared with the year before.
The worst previous year- over-year monthly decline was 6.3 percent in January.
Jesus Cervantes, director of economic measurement for Mexico’s central bank, said more than 20 percent of Mexican migrants work in construction in the United States, a sector hit particularly hard by the U.S. mortgage crisis.
Mexicans who depend on money sent home are also suffering from an 8 percent drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against the Mexican peso this year.
