Economic Security & Prosperity
The economy should work for everyone, not just a select few. But for New Mexicans who lack job skills and education, and work in low-wage jobs with little hope for advancement, economic security is just a dream. Long-term economic prosperity involves promoting economic and workforce development opportunities for all New Mexicans, as well as supporting access to adequate wage and work supports for those in crisis and those who are unable to work.
Featured Content
Guaranteed Income: Increasing Employment and Helping Families Thrive
Research shows that when people are given unrestricted cash payments — sometimes called guaranteed income (GI) — they pursue better jobs, complete educational or vocational training, and create stability for their families. This report (available in English and Spanish) looks at how a GI pilot program for immigrant families in New Mexico improved outcomes for participating families.
New Mexico is Putting Families First in Tax Policy
Our state’s policy makers made a number of improvements to the tax code since 2019 that will help low- and middle-income New Mexicans, improve equity, and increase economic opportunity for our working families.
Tax Policy: A Powerful Tool to Advance Racial Equity in New Mexico
Systemic racism isn’t accidental – it’s the result of public policies that benefit one group while disadvantaging others. Our state and national tax systems have been built to benefit those at the top (who are mostly white) while disadvantaging people of color. This report looks at concrete ways New Mexico can make our tax system more equitable.
Recent Publications
New Mexico has the Most-Improved Tax Fairness of Any State
Fact Sheet New Mexico now has the ninth most progressive tax system in the nation as ranked by ITEP’s recently updated Who Pays? report on tax incidence. That same report showed New Mexico as making the most progress toward tax fairness in the nation! This fact sheet explains why. (State-level data on effective tax rates by income group.)
Income-Support Programs Show Success in Reducing Poverty in New Mexico
Fact Sheet In recent years, increases and expansions of income supports have made a big difference for families who are working their way out of poverty. When the value of these programs are taken into account it is clear that families earning low incomes are receiving the supports needed to help lift them out of poverty in New Mexico. (State-level data on poverty and labor force participation rates.)
Recent Blog Posts
Student op-ed on taxes misses the big picture
New Mexico has already been lowering tax rates for the vast majority of its residents over the past several years. Increased and improved tax credits have returned hundreds of millions of dollars to families over the past few years alone. The state has also lowered the gross receipts tax rate, which benefits us all, including small businesses. And just this past session, lawmakers lowered personal income tax rates for everyone.
A Mother’s Day wish: A better future for moms and kids
Santa Fe New Mexican--Our families deserve more than financial survival. We deserve to thrive. Next year, 2025, will be a powerful chapter of our story, 20 years in the future, in which we tell the story of how we made New Mexico the best place to be a kid. We did it by supporting the people who love them most: moms.
Recent News Coverage
Looking at the Whole Picture
Santa Fe Reporter--“I think we can learn a lot from Kids Count’s individual data sets—for example, this year, the ranking says more kids are living in households with high housing costs of burden. That points to, ‘We need to fix housing in New Mexico, we need to do it expeditiously,’” Uballez says.
New Mexico again ranks at the bottom for child wellbeing
NM Political Report--“Although there’s still work to do, New Mexico’s official child poverty rate continues to improve but change takes time,” said Gabrielle Uballez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children said. “And this measure of poverty only considers income. When we look instead at the supplemental poverty measure, which measures the impact of some of our best poverty-fighting policies, we see that New Mexico’s investments in families through refundable tax credits and income support programs have a real impact on lowering poverty rates and supporting family well-being.”
Programs, Coalitions & Networks
Economic Relief Working Group A coalition of several grassroots and advocacy organizations – many of them focused on immigrant rights – ERWG was formed in 2020 initially to secure pandemic relief for those New Mexicans who did not qualify for federal relief due to their immigration status. ERWG worked on getting an accurate 2020 Census count for the state, and has also worked on wages, voting rights, tax credits and child care assistance, and currently runs a guarantied basic income (GBI) pilot project for families with mixed immigration status.
New Mexico Fairness Project A coalition of more than 30 organizations, NMFP works to ensure that New Mexico collects tax revenue in a way that is equitable and sustainable, and that is adequate to fund the programs, services, and infrastructure that New Mexico’s children, families, communities, and businesses rely upon. Run by NM Voices, NMFP also fights for fair wages and working conditions, and other issues central to family economic security.
Economic Analysis and Research Network EARN is a program of the Economic Policy Institute for research, policy, and advocacy organizations across the nation fighting for an economy that works for everyone. EARN advances an inclusive, worker-centered economy through state and local policy change, rigorous research, and collaboration between researchers, advocates, and community groups across the country.
State Revenue Alliance A network of state-based community, labor, and policy advocates from across the country, SRA works with on-the-ground advocates, giving them the strategic resources they need to build intersectional, people-powered campaigns that transform revenue policy – ensuring our states fully fund communities and that corporations and the ultra rich pay what they owe.
New Mexico Civic Engagement Table A project of the Center for Civic Policy, NMCET unifies more than 40 diverse organizations from different sectors around a common agenda to strengthen our democracy. Among its issues are economic justice, early childhood education, climate justice, immigration reform, and economic development.
Resources
A Basic Family Budget Calculator is an important tool in determining if a family lives in poverty, because the system currently in place to do that is completely outdated.
Federal poverty guidelines, which dictate whether a family is eligible to receive assistance such as Medicaid and Food Stamps, are tied to a formula that was created in the 1960s. It was based on what the typical family spent on groceries because that was a family’s biggest expense at the time. Today, necessities like housing, childcare and health care take up a far greater share of most family incomes than groceries. Not only do the guidelines not take these changes into account, they do not take into account regional differences in the cost of living.
Because the federal guidelines are so inaccurate, families are generally considered low-income when they earn up to twice (or 200 percent) the poverty level. This makes up for some shortfalls in the guidelines, but they are still nowhere near as accurate as a Basic Family Budget.
- Click here to find out the minimum amount families need to earn in order to live at a basic, no-frills level in New Mexico’s cities and counties