New Mexico falls to 50th among US states in latest “Economic Freedom Freedom of North America”

The Rio Grande Foundation has never seen “eye to eye” with Gov. Lujan Grisham and the leftists in Santa Fe who have failed to improve New Mexico even with the benefit of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues. And, while these policy differences and failures may seem trivial to some, they have real world negative impacts on everyday New Mexicans in the form of poverty, crime, inequality, and migration.

But, with the annual release of the Canada-based Fraser Institute’s “Economic Freedom of North America 2025” report, at least we can quantify New Mexico’s sad status as the least economically free state in the union. You can see the gory details below, but as page 13 of the 2024 index highlights, New Mexico dropped significantly and saw New York, California, and Hawaii all rise ahead of us. For an even longer perspective you can go back to 1981 to the very first version of the report which highlights that New Mexico hasn’t always been at the very bottom in terms of economic freedom.

RGF and the Fraser Institute undertook a policy brief discussing New Mexico’s decline in economic freedom (not including 2025 data) earlier this year.