New Mexico Voices for Children

New Mexico Voices for Children, a local non-profit working to improve child well being, has new leadership in Gabrielle Uballez. KUNM sat down with Uballez to learn more about her plans to create a healthier and safer New Mexico for children and families.

Things are getting better for New Mexico’s kids, but slowly. That is according to a report that comes out each year at the beginning of the legislative session. The study also included data on environmental health for the first time.

Despite Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signing numerous policies intended to improve the well-being of New Mexico’s children, the state continues to rank last nationally. That’s according to this year’s Kids Count Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, released Wednesday. But, despite the concerning score, there is hope in the data.

The expansion of the federal child tax credit in 2021 made a dent in how many U.S. children are living in poverty, but it ended after just one year. New Mexico, a state with the second highest child poverty rate in the country, quickly passed its own version of the tax relief for people with children last year. While parents won’t see the benefits of the state credit until they file taxes next year, lawmakers are already debating whether to increase it.

Legislation to reduce “pyramiding” in New Mexico’s tax code will likely be proposed this legislative session. While the move could provide relief for small businesses and consumers, it’ll also reduce the recurring revenue of the state’s gross receipts tax.

Significant tax reforms are expected to move through the Roundhouse this year with bipartisan support. Bill Jordan with New Mexico Voices for Children is calling for lawmakers to create a more equitable tax code — not only with an eye towards income levels, but race and gender as well.

On this week’s Let's Talk New Mexico, we look at what happens next now that voters approved a constitutional amendment to funnel more money from the Land Grant Permanent Fund into early childhood education and public schools.

New Mexico has improved in key areas of child well-being but our state is still at the bottom. That’s according to the new Kids Count Data Book for 2022. While much of the information was collected before the pandemic it does measure the impact of COVID on anxiety and depression among kids.

Despite some limitations, the expanded Opportunity Scholarship is among the nation's most generous - if not the most generous - programs to support college tuition for a broad range of students.

In New Mexico 30,000 immigrant families were excluded from stimulus checks, unemployment benefits, and other safety net programs which are unavailable to undocumented workers, even if they were in frontline or essential jobs. A coalition of immigrant aid organizations is working to increase assistance to those families across the state through cash transfers, which have proven to be an effective means of helping families stay afloat during the COVID-19 crisis across the nation.