That's a great question! I would assume their income is more so reported in the US, though, no? (assuming you mean MLB players)

Source: World Inequality Database

Tools: Excel, Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer

From our newsletter:

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: the pandemic has only worsened the problem of global economic inequality.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in Latin America, which has been named the most unequal region in the world by, among others, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.

But while it’s not breaking news that global crises further inequalities and concentrate more wealth in the hands of the rich, it may surprise you to learn where this is most the case.

The Dominican Republic, Peru, and Mexico are all among the most unequal countries in the world per World Inequality Lab figures, with the top 1% of each country earning between 25-30% of the country’s total income.

Yes, you read that right. The richest 1% of Mexicans earn over a quarter of the money flow in the country; the richest Dominicans, nearly a third.

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Source: oec.world

Tools: Excel, Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer

It does! No Mexican or Brazilian artist is present in LatAm’s top 10

Top 10 from LatAm. 4 others for reference.

Source: https://kworb.net/spotify/artists.html

Tools: Excel, Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer

From our newsletter:

Is Puerto Rico the music capital of the world? 🇵🇷

Puerto Rico, with 3.3M people or 0.4% of LatAm's population, is the birthplace of 6 of the region's top 10 most streamed artists on Spotify. Many of them are also top artists worldwide.

There is no way such a stat is a product of chance.

There must be an incredible force behind the success of so many artists from a tiny island roughly the size of Connecticut, the US's 3rd smallest state.

For over a hundred years, the island has been the motherland of original music genres:

• Bomba by enslaved Africans

• Plena by Jíbaros (native farmers)

• Danza (adapted from Europe's contradanza)

• and more recently, Reggaeton and Latin trap

The US territory, the only one that maintains Spanish as the official language, has one of the world's highest concentrations of music stars per capita (perhaps the highest).

When looking at Spotify streams, singers like Ricky Martin or Chayanne are at a disadvantage because they became big well before Spotify existed, so they do not appear on our chart.

However, the last 20 or so years have brought about a new era of rappers like Residente and reggaeton superstars, best exemplified by Bad Bunny, currently the most streamed artist on the planet for three years in a row.

Bad Bunny was inspired by “the King of reggaeton,” Daddy Yankee, who is 4th on the list despite also having somewhat of a disadvantage. His iconic song, Gasolina, came out in 2004, when your writer still burned custom CDs and used a Walkman.

Gasolina was listed as #50 by Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and there's absolutely no way you haven’t heard it before.

Colombian J Balvin is number two on the list and has more streams than Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift. Behind every great artist, there's a great producer.

In J Balvin's case, that person is “Sky Rompiendo,” who is responsible for some of J Balvin's greatest hits and collaborations like Safari with Pharell Williams. Sky has also produced songs for Ozuna and Maluma, also top 10 artists, and many other Latin stars.

So, undoubtedly, Puerto Rico and Colombia LatAm's music capitals. The big inexplicable question is: why are there 0 artists from Brazil and Mexico in Latin America's top 10? 🇲🇽🇧🇷

From our newsletter:

Love it or hate it, Shakira has quickly "facturado" her very public divorce, earning an estimated $99K - $795K since her collab with Bizarrap was released.

The launch has become a global sensation, reaching 100M views on YouTube within the first three days of its release. This makes it the fastest-ever song in Spanish to break 100M views on YouTube. Their achievement is even more mind-blowing because the only other artists to reach this milestone are K-Pop, Indian, and Japanese. You read that correctly; Shakira's Spanish song achieved more views in 3 days than any song by Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, or Justin Bieber has ever been able to.

For the memesphere and pop culture, this is a lesson in meme generation. And to prove it, Clara-mente (clearly), we're jumping on the bandwagon with our chart.

One line after the other of the song co-authored by Shakira is really thought out to become an Instagram post. The winning quote has been "Las mujeres ya no lloran, las mujeres facturan," which roughly translates to "Women no longer cry, they send their invoice."

Bizarrap is undoubtedly an artist worth highlighting and deserves a Latinometrics chart of his own at some point. The sunglass-sporting Argentinian music producer has independently collaborated with artists of all kinds and garnered an incredible 6B+ YouTube views since joining the platform in 2017.

Biza's career started by filming local rap battles in his small hometown of Ramos Mejia. Nowadays, the 24-year-old music prodigy can catapult emerging artists' careers with a single collaboration. Latin music stars like Nicky Jam, Residente, Trueno (and now Shakira) eagerly fly to his home to be a part of his impressively viral track record.

This most recent collaboration is on track to become the biggest yet, and the effects go beyond the music scene. For marketers, the way Casio reacted can serve as a case study. The rarely mentioned brand has garnered more than 5.7M in earned media on Instagram in the last few days following Shakira's line that her ex "traded a Rolex for a Casio," or Shakira for his lover. A parody account also showed a picture of a young Shakira wearing a Casio.

The brand took advantage of the diss by acting fast, enlisting Casio owners to call themselves #teamcasio. According to Google Trends, searches for the brand have grown 7x in some countries since the song was released, and sales will surely follow.

Shakira's song alludes to the fact that women no longer need to suffer in private when faced with betrayal, injustice, or abuse, whether in the workplace or the love space. Instead, they can actually own their story and seek justice in whatever way it may come.

Source: kworb
Tools: Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer

From our newsletter:

The cost of mobile data across the world has been steadily dropping. According to cable.co.uk statistics, almost all countries have experienced a significant price drop.

Even the most expensive country for mobile online browsing in LatAm, Cuba, saw a drop from $13.33 per GB in 2020 to $3.10 in 2022. In fact, according to the Alliance for Affordable Internet, from 2015 to 2020, the world's average price of mobile data as a percentage of income dropped by more than half.

The drops are partly due to increases in competition and the introduction of new technologies like 5G. Spectrum auctions have played a part in price reductions. Spectrum auctions are like big sales, where telecom companies bid and pay the government for the right to use parts of the airwaves to improve their services and coverage. This gamification for providing mobile services increases competition and further drives cost down.

Institutions are also responsible for developing the infrastructure to reach telecom accessibility and affordability. Funttel in Brazil, for example, has been successful in expanding mobile coverage in rural areas and increasing access to mobile services for low-income and disadvantaged populations since its implementation in 2000.

Source: Cable.co.uk
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From our newsletter:

Uruguay has outperformed all other Latin American countries when it comes to eradicating informality, cutting it in half in the span of a decade.

Informal workers don't pay taxes and are not covered by social security, meaning that, although employed, they don't have access to social benefits like healthcare or pensions.

Having said this, it's no secret that Latin America has a vast informal economy, with more than half of its population working informally. In this context, Uruguay has become an anomaly in the region, with only a 20% informality rate. This puts them closer to Europe, which has a 17% rate.

The improvement did not happen overnight, though. It's a result of decades-long efforts. What can other countries learn from Uruguay?

After starting the century with an economic crisis, Uruguay saw sustained economic success, outperforming other countries in the region. Labor formality is a natural byproduct of economic success, meaning that the economic context laid the groundwork for their decline in informality.

However, this could not have been achieved without successful policies by Uruguay's government in various areas.

• First, in 2005 the country set up policies to reactivate collective bargaining aka negotiations between employees and employers on working conditions. This has led to stronger unions in the country, which have worked towards workers' inclusion into social security.
• Second, the government has introduced several tax reforms, including tax incentives for employers to integrate their workers into social security.
• Lastly, the government has introduced other social programs, such as unemployment insurance and healthcare modifications.

Even as the pandemic brought about an increase in informal employment across Latin America, Uruguay's informality surprisingly decreased even further by an **estimated 3% during this period. **

This phenomenon is still being investigated; however, some experts have pointed to a generalized failure of small businesses in the country, driving labor into larger companies operating in the economy's formal sector.

Source: Our World in Data

Tools: Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer

Source: Google Finance

Tools: Excel, Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer

There is! Check out the comment we just posted :)

From our newsletter:

What has caused this production increase? In short: demand from China. Nowadays, China buys around 91% of all cherry exports from Chile. Chile's cherry harvest happens just before the Chinese new year; therefore, cherries have become a popular gift in China, culturally considered a symbol of prosperity. The fruit is marketed as something close to luxury and packed in elegant 5 kg boxes in the Chinese market.

Furthermore, two things have also facilitated such prosperity in the Chilean cherry industry: strong government support and a recent influx of labor. In 2005, the government established a free trade agreement with China (now its largest export partner, ahead of the US), eliminating trade barriers between the two countries. Wisely, they've also set rigorous production standards, ensuring exported cherries are of the highest quality.

On the other hand, cherry plantations require a large amount of field labor, which the country has found in the roughly 700K immigrants that arrived in Chile between 2015 and 2017. These immigrants, mainly from Haiti and Venezuela, have driven labor costs down in the industry and allowed it to keep growing quickly.

Although presented with pandemic-related challenges lately, the cherry industry is quickly becoming a crucial component of Chile's trade. It diversifies exports from a historical overreliance on copper, which accounts for roughly half of its exports.

Source: Our World in Data
Tools: Rawgraphs, Affinity Designer, Sheets