New Mexico Voices For Children
Improving children’s lives through advocacy
The future of our society is in our children’s hands. When all children have the opportunities they need to thrive, we all benefit, so it makes sense to ensure that every child has access to the educational, emotional, health, and economic supports they need to grow up healthy and strong, and to become contributing members of society. We believe that the best way to ensure this is to discover the underlying reasons that some children lack these supports and then to advocate for the public policies that will address the gaps. Learn more about our work to accomplish that here.
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Recent Blog Posts
State agencies (still) need a culture shift, and fast!
Prior to the ACA, the Human Services Department (HSD) played the role of gatekeeper for the programs they administered, such as Medicaid. Instead of working hard to enroll everyone who was eligible, they seemed to view their job as making sure that as few people got enrolled as possible – even though they were eligible.
Fighting the Current: Why New Mexicans need a Higher Minimum Wage
A minimum wage increase is long overdue – it hasn’t been raised in almost a decade. As prices increase, purchasing power erodes, and families find themselves sinking deeper into dire straits. Our $7.50 minimum wage is now worth just $6.30.
Ruling in K-12 funding lawsuit is movement in right direction
Given the many challenges faced by our children, New Mexico should be making whatever investments are necessary to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive and achieve success. Instead, over the last decade New Mexico has made some of the deepest cuts to K-12 education in the country. While some funding was restored during the 2018 legislative session, we are still far behind where we should be on a per-student, inflation-adjusted basis.
Recent News Coverage
Report: NM Tax Overhaul Would Benefit Kids, Families
James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, said state policymakers could address the inequity by embracing a more progressive tax system. "It's really a much fairer way of allocating tax responsibility to support the kinds of things that we need - good, strong schools and higher education, great infrastructure," he said. "Those are really the fundamental things that we need to figure out how to pay for in a fair way."
New Mexico leaders, industry must step up
For instance, if this methane waste and the associated state tax and royalty revenue was captured, the state could increase pre-K enrollment by 50 percent and allow 5,000 more New Mexico kids access to quality early childhood education, according to education advocates New Mexico Voices for Children.
Kids need leaders
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s decision to gut the Bureau of Land Management methane waste rule means our state will lose out on millions of dollars in royalty revenue that is desperately needed to fund our schools. It makes no sense to waste our resources and tax dollars, especially when it puts our kids’ education on the line. New Mexico’s kids need leaders who will stand up to waste and defend their right to a good education.
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