It’s something that legislators everywhere have been discussing for decades. No income limits. No long waiting lists. No more choices between a paycheck and a safe place for kids. The resulting headlines are turning heads, but as someone who was part of the policy design, I know New Mexico’s breakthrough isn’t just about child care.
For years, our state has had some of the highest child poverty rates in the nation. Families spent more on child care than on housing. Providers — primarily women of color — earned poverty wages. And yet the idea of a robustly funded, comprehensive prenatal-to-age-3 system was long dismissed as unaffordable and thereby unattainable.
So how did we get here? The real story runs deeper and holds a core lesson for state lawmakers trying to avoid the worst that Congress has thrown at them with the recent passage of the federal tax and spending megabill and its cuts to essential health, food and other social services.
In 2018, New Mexico voters selected a new governor and replaced a number of longtime state legislators with lawmakers who saw the need to follow an updated road map for the state. Almost immediately, New Mexico raised revenue by asking the wealthiest people and corporations to pay a bit more as part of a strategy to invest more in programs proven to improve child well-being.
Re-elections and other improvements to our state’s tax and other policies kept the momentum going: expansion of tax credits for working families, including one of the country’s first state child tax credits; minimum wage increases; passage of paid sick leave; expansions of postpartum health care; and major increases in K-12 education funding — it all came.
In 2022, New Mexicans approved a constitutional amendment to draw money from our multibillion-dollar Land Grant Permanent Fund and put it toward early childhood and education programs. It was the first time any state had written an early-care guarantee into its constitution.
This didn’t happen because lobbyists in Santa Fe suddenly had a change of heart. It happened because advocates — including parents, tribal leaders and early-care workers — refused to give up, and because lawmakers listened and put our communities first. When the amendment passed, it was a shot across the bow. New Mexico was no longer waiting for Washington, where Congress had let the expanded Child Tax Credit expire, throwing millions of families back into hardship. It was up to states to act, and New Mexico was among those that did.
The results of what has happened at the state Capitol and the ballot box speak for themselves. Poverty in our state has fallen by more than a third, and some 120,000 New Mexicans have been lifted out of poverty, a number that will grow as child care becomes free for all families. Families can work without having to hand over their entire paycheck to a day-care center. Providers will see wage increases. Kids will start school healthier and better prepared.
The New Mexico experience is proof that everyone, regardless of their income, benefits from a more equitable tax code. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that New Mexico has made the most progress in fighting inequality via its tax code since 2018. At the same time, data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that the number of millionaires in New Mexico grew by 167 percent between 2010 and 2022.
That’s the lesson that policymakers and advocates in other states need to hear: Neither big deficits nor big opportunities can be funded by tinkering around the budgetary edges. New Mexico has shown what’s possible.
Amber Wallin is the executive director of the State Revenue Alliance and former executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
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