Mexico's recent social policies have benn pointed out by multilateral organs like the World Bank as a successfull program against poverty. This papers claims that this evaluation is utterly mistaken and shows how and why poverty has grown substancially in the country during the period 1983-1994. As to the resourses alloted to the program against extreme poverty, PRONASOL, it is shown that they, although insignificant as compared to the social needs, were large enough to make the program an useful instrumental for the clientelistic and political controling interests of the PRI
