NM Voices in the News
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Let’s Use Childcare Assistance to Lift the Workers Out of Poverty Too
El Semanario--While it’s great to know that the expansion of universal child care has such a dramatic effect on lowering poverty in New Mexico for the children and families who receive the program, there is one significant way in which the CA program falls short: wages for child care and other early care and education (ECE) workers remain unacceptably low. If we can use our CA program to lift kids and families out of poverty, why don’t we use it to lift the people who provide that care out of poverty as well?
‘Not only draconian… immoral’: NM legislators, advocates talk Trump deportation plans
NM Political Report--Chavero cited the report “Essential but Excluded” that was completed during the pandemic by New Mexico Voices for Children and other advocacy groups. “We have a robust immigrants’ rights movement in New Mexico,” Chavero said. “Bigger and stronger than we were eight years ago during the first Trump administration.”
Head Start could be threatened under Trump
NM Political Report--Jacob Vigil, deputy policy director for New Mexico Voices for Children, told NM Political Report that Head Start is “crucial” to enabling many women in New Mexico to stay in the workforce. “It’s one of the most effective anti-poverty programs for the most vulnerable kids in our country. Head Start continues to be a huge part of the rural childcare system,” Vigil said.
House speaker, advocates plot pushback on Trump deportation plans
Santa Fe New Mexican--“New Mexico is home to an estimated 60,000 undocumented immigrants,” said Zulema Chavero, citizenship coordinator for Somos Un Pueblo Unido. She said they “pay more than $67.7 million annually in state and local taxes,” citing a 2020 report from New Mexico Voices for Children.
New Mexico ranks 17th in nation for child poverty, according to one ranking
NM Political Report--“We haven’t done enough and we could be doing way more but [the recent policy changes] do have positive impact. We have to push harder to improve those programs,” Wildau said.
Child poverty measures tell two stories in New Mexico
Santa Fe New Mexican--“Far too many families are living in poverty, when we look at the [official poverty measure],” Voices for Children research and policy analyst Emily Wildau said. “But the [official poverty measure] doesn’t actually show us the also very real impact of those programs that do lift many kids and families out of poverty.”
Gen Z kids struggle with mental health across Southern NM
Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative--In Doña Ana County, the most populous in Southern New Mexico, about one in three children live in poverty, according to New Mexico Voices for Children.
Experts ‘cautiously optimistic’ about New Mexico’s child poverty rate continuing to decrease
Source NM--“When you look at the supplemental poverty measure, it’s actually measuring the impact of a lot of really strong anti-poverty programs like our tax credits and SNAP programs, and even school lunches are included in that measure. And so it kind of gives us a better sense of basically what a household has in resources,” said Emily Wildau, Senior Research & Policy Analyst/KIDS COUNT Coordinator for New Mexico Voices for Children.
When anti-poverty programs are accounted for, New Mexico’s child poverty ranking improves
NM Political Report--“We know that poverty is a policy choice,” Uballez said through the release. “Fortunately, our state lawmakers continue to invest in state tax credits and income support programs that lift New Mexican families above the poverty line. We build upon our success by continuing to enact policies that work for our kids and families to improve access to benefits while also exploring new opportunities to build wealth, raise wages, and break generational cycles of poverty.”
Report shows New Mexico’s efforts to combat childhood poverty are making a difference
KUNM FM--“So, you look at a child tax credit or the earned income tax credit, you look at non-cash benefits like SNAP, those things are having a significant impact on lifting people above the poverty line,” she said.