to authorities; households have also reported paying up to 6.9 percent of their income as bribes. In total, the cost of corruption in terms of GDP was estimated to be about $550bn in 2000. The situation is still problematic in spite of recent initiatives by the state to become more transparent to the public. Over the years, there has been an effort by the government to reduce opacity, but even so, these initiatives often do not realize their full potential. In June 2003, under Vincente Fox's presidency, the implementation of the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Public Government Information (IFAI) offered civic organizations and members of the public to acquire previously undisclosed information. This reform has led to the exposure of previous under-the-radar activities, such as the government's misappropriation of 200 million pesos that was intended to combat AIDS. And yet, censorship is still prevalent: in 2008, changes were proposed to increase the subjugation of IFAI's decisions to state control, so that the distribution of information would become more centralized. A number of vertical subversions were also carried out at the time, including the merging of offices that handled information requests with less important agencies. This violated the earlier progressive changes to the constitution, including Article 6, so that transparency was threatened. Opacity is therefore a major player as a determinant of inequality, especially in effecting the welfare of lower-class households. When resources are misallocated and official funds pocketed by illegitimate parties, the true quality of public services such as healthcare tend to be lower than expected; similarly, the secrecy of the government's budget allocation prevents public scrutiny, so it is difficult to establish financial accountability. As well, from a broader perspective, vital infrastructure from projects, especially those aimed at facilitating social mobility, will also have to deal with the potential impediments caused by the overpricing effect and unnecessary risks of corruption, thereby reducing the accessibility of infrastructure for the poor, especially in rural areas where such infrastructure is less established than in urban areas. Government and politics (social programs) Mexico is a country that has significantly improved in various areas such as access to health, education, life expectancy, GDP, level of exports abroad, infrastructure, labor productivity, among others. But it should also be noted that the distribution of income has become increasingly unequal; which is a serious problem because the misallocation and generation of resources inhibits economic