The slowing of the U.S. economy is affecting people in other countries, too.
Many of those with family members working in the U.S. are accustomed to receiving remittances from their family members abroad. But with costs rising across the board in the U.S., immigrants to America have less money to send home.
"As he fixes a broken sliding glass door at an apartment in Anaheim, California, Eduardo Gutierrez worries about his parents in Mexico," according to a recent CNN article. "But with the U.S. economy sagging, his hours have shrunk, even as his gas and grocery bills have skyrocketed along with other expenses. He's struggling just to support his wife and three children."
A recent poll by the Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund found that 50 percent of Latin American adults living in the U.S. were sending money to their home countries--down from 73 percent of respondents in 2006.
"Bank of Mexico, Mexico's equivalent to the Federal Reserve, says stories like these are becoming more common. Deceleration in the U.S. construction industry resulted in $100 million less in "remittances" -- money from workers in the U.S. to their relatives in Mexico -- in January this year, the most recent available stats. The overall figure went from $1.7 billion in January 2007 to $1.6 billion this January, according to Bank of Mexico," CNN reported.
The slowdown of the construction industry can be tied to the slumping housing market.
