Ariadna Montiel Reyes serves as Secretaria de Bienestar on the Cabinet of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Secretaria de Bienestar is translated into English as “Secretary of Welfare”. Her department is the Secretaría de Bienestar, the Secretariat of Welfare.
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Ariadna Montiel was born in 1974 in Mexico City and she studied at UNAM (the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). She was a member of the PRD, AMLO’s previous party, in which she held several party posts, followed by several posts in the Mexico City government.
Since 2018 she has been a member of MORENA, the party founded by AMLO.
After AMLO’s election in 2018, Ariadna Montiel was named Sub-Secretary of Welfare. On January 11th, 2022, she was named as Secretary of Welfare.
She remained in that post when Claudia Sheinbaum assumed the presidency on October 1st, 2024.
On December 4th, Secretary Montiel announced on Twitter X that “With the Reform to Articles 4 and 27 of the Constitution, in the second story of the Fourth Transformation [Second Phase of the Fourth Transformation Agenda], we ensure that the Bienestar (well-being, welfare) of Mexicans is a right.”
Here are the programs she is referring to:
These programs are:
1. Pension for the elderly (65 and above).
2. Pension for the handicapped (0 to 64 years).
3. Right to Therapy for the handicapped, with preference to those under 18
4. An annual budget for the programs.
5. Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life), a program to attend to rural poverty and
environmental degradation.
6. Support for small-scale fishing and fish production businesses.
7. Fertilizers for small producers.
8. Guaranteed prices for corn, beans, milk, rice and flour-grade wheat.
As I pointed out in a previous article, President Sheinbaum had pledged this on October 5th.