Let’s use childcare assistance to lift workers out of poverty

New Mexico has made some significant and historic investments in early childhood – and there is exciting new evidence that these investments are making a big difference in children’s well-being. In fact, our state’s Childcare Assistance program is most likely one of the factors why child poverty has declined so sharply in a recent measure released by the Census Bureau.

When the census measures only parental income, New Mexico’s child poverty rate is disturbingly high — 27%, or the highest in the country. But when anti-poverty programs like SNAP, housing assistance and tax credits are taken into account, our child poverty rate falls to less than 9% – or even below the national average. One of the factors measured in this different poverty rate is the out-of-pocket cost of child care. While child care can cost more than college tuition in much of the country, New Mexico’s Childcare Assistance (CA) program offers free, co-pay child care to almost all New Mexico families.

While it’s nice to know that expanding universal child care is having such a dramatic impact on reducing poverty in New Mexico for the children and families receiving the program, there is one important point where the CA program has to In short: wages for childcare and other early care and education workers remain unacceptably low. If we can use our CA program to lift children and families out of poverty, why don’t we also use it to lift the people who provide that care out of poverty?