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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. The finance minister in Mexico estimates H1N1, or “swine flu” as it's commonly known, is going to cost the country's economy more than $2 billion dollars. That's from loss of tourist revenue and the cost to businesses after the government ordered a week-long shutdown to prevent the spread of the flu. But one group will really feel the pain – the 40 percent or so of Mexicans working in the informal economy. The World's Lorne Matalon spoke with some of them.

LORNE MATALON: Take Berta Ruiz-Cruz, a single 42-year-old with 3 children. She sells everything – cigarettes, socks, tortillas and tacos – from a pushcart in downtown Mexico City. “I'm not making anything to take care of my children,” she says. “I can't even give them food.” She says business is so bad, she couldn't even sell her soul if she wanted to. Along Mexico City's all but deserted grand boulevard, the Paseo de la Reforma, 28-year-old Juan Fabian Mendoza says he's made a decent living for years shining shoes. At 90 cents per customer, he can make $50 dollars on a good day. With businesses, restaurants, movie theaters, and coffee shops closed, he now counts his customers each day on one hand. He says, “There's no work. No one is outside. Everyone's hiding out, and everyone's complaining because there is no money.” While the government is giving restaurant waiters and some other service people $4 dollars a day during the shutdown, street vendors get nothing. Fabian says the shutdown is a government hoax. If the virus were so deadly, he reasons, many more Mexicans would be dead. Certainly, many here support the government's shutdown. But unexpected vacation days for people working in the formal economy have been a disaster for those in the underground economy. Mexico City's mariachis set up in the plaza every night, crisis or no crisis. They too are part of the underground economy, auditioning for passers-by, hoping to get hired for a wedding or office party. Offices are closed and weddings are being postponed. One Mariachi, “Pancho”, says his business is non-existent. He says, “Nothing is happening,” neither with his business nor, he says, with the flu. He believes the government has exaggerated the threat. Today, the government unveiled a 1.3 billion-dollar stimulus package aimed at tourism and small businesses. That number is an abstraction for people working on the street. They're just hoping that as businesses and restaurants begin to re-open tomorrow, that they'll have customers again. For The World, I'm Lorne Matalon, in Mexico City.

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