New Mexico Will Be The First State With Universal Child Care — Here's What That Means

Maybe we can forget abandoning our entire lives and moving to Europe for affordable daycare options — New Mexico just became the first state to offer all residents universal child care, regardless of income.

The change is expected to save families over $12,000 a year, per child.

“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation, and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” said Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in a statement. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”

The initiative is based on a large body of research that shows that kids thrive when they have a strong early education and care — and that society reaps a lot of benefits down the road, too.

“New Mexico is creating the conditions for better outcomes in health, learning, and well-being,” said Neal Halfon, professor of pediatrics, public health and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities. “Its approach is rooted in data, driven by communities, and becoming a model for the nation.

At the same time, caregivers at home will be freed up to rejoin the workforce earlier or with better options, boosting the economy. Lawmakers also believe this will encourage more families to grow and have more children.

The free childcare program that already exists in the state currently covers about 50% of families in New Mexico spends about $600 million per year on care. It still needs an additional $120 million in funding for the expansion, which Lujan Grisham is planning to raise at the next legislative session to help fund the initiative.

Ultimately, she wants this system to be a “model for the nation.”

“There are so many people across the country that say [universal child care is] impossible — not impossible,” the governor said in a recent speech.

The plan is not without critics. Some GOP leaders in the state are calling the move “nannies for millionaires” since it will now serve all families, not just low-income ones. At the same time, New Mexico, like many states, already has a shortage of childcare workers.

However, the Governor and the legislation’s supporters have plans to increase the number of childcare workers and the childcare support system generally. And they believe that offering across-the-board childcare will ultimately result in a better future for the state.

Specifically, the state will offer a multi-million-dollar loan fund for New Mexico to build, renovate, and expand childcare centers. At the same time, a statewide campaign will begin to recruit and license new childcare workers.

The final dream is to have a totally universal prenatal-to-5 care and education system for all kids.

This is not a new program for New Mexico — around the time of the pandemic, the state opened their Early Childhood Education & Care Department. Soon, using pandemic relief money, they began to offer the majority of families in the state (those earning less than 400% of the national poverty level) free childcare. They also began to subsidize underpaid childcare workers so that they could make a living wage. The result was that about 120,000 people were lifted out of poverty in just five years, many of them children.

And they believe that they have yet to see all of the positive results of giving young children excellent care, paying professional caregivers more, and freeing up mothers to follow their career paths.

“This is generational change,” said the governor, who noted that the first recipients of these new programs are just now entering kindergarten.

Wow — if only more states, or even the federal government, would start investing in our kids, in childcare workers, and in working moms.