By Walt Rubel, KRWG FM
June 17, 2019

Commentary: State child welfare officials in Louisiana and Mississippi this week are saying “thank God for New Mexico.” Again.

The annual child wellbeing rankings were released Monday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and for the second year in a row, New Mexico ranked last in the nation. Mississippi was 48th, moving up a spot, and Louisiana was 49th.

While it is impossible to place lower than 50th, our rankings in the four main categories considered in the survey show the state falling further behind. We were last in Education both years. This year, we were also last in the category of Family and Community Domain, 49th in Economic Security and 48th in Health.

As is always the case with this annual survey, there is a lag time with the data. Most of the statistics presented in this report were taken from 2017, and are compared with numbers from 2016 to determine if there has been an improvement.

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