Well look at the buying power of the average American worker. Why are food stamps, or the cards they use in place of them, at an all time high? And you have to look at different areas of the U.S. While the average salary of a New Yorker oar someone from the Frisco Bay area can be in the $100K range, the average salary of someone in Rocks Throw, Midwest is usually in the mid 30K - 40K range. How much, or little, a Mexican worker makes is relative to the perspective you have and the cost of living they deal with.
Similar thing goes on in cross country commercial trucking wages here in the U.S. Many decry that one can't make it on the "poverty" incomes that trucking fleets pay. Well, that would be somewhat true, if you are residing in L.A. Frisco, NY, or D.C. But if you are living in, say, Iowa, you would be doing pretty good, above the average income, compared to many of your neighbors.
Some have said, that a Mexican worker at a auto plant only makes about $4 an hour. Well, when a complete sit down meal in a restaurant in Mexico only costs about $2, how does that compare to say, an American worker that is making $20 per hour, but they can hardly walk out of a fast food joint spending under $10? And America has the highest corporate tax rate in the entire world, so that goes into the pricing for the consumer, then throw on sales taxes, property taxes, license plate taxes, fuel taxes, and a million other ways the government takes what you earn, and the buying power of the American consumer is not all that much better than quite a few other places on the planet.
