New Mexico a disaster for families

Michelle Lujan Grisham and many Democrats in New Mexico’s Legislature seem to believe that the best way to support families is more government handouts. As part of their “cradle to career” agenda we’ve seen the establishment of taxpayer-funded “free” childcare, pre-K, and college and massive increases in K-12 spending as well.

But are these government programs enough to “move the needle” and make New Mexico a better place for families? Not so much. For exhibit A you need look no further than the NM DoJ’s recent report detailing myriad failings at CYFD. You can watch an hour long press conference of AG Raul Torrez announcing his lawsuit against CYFD and the agency’s myriad failings.

We’d ALSO recommend a new report from the Institute for Family Studies. Sadly, the report (as so many do) ranked New Mexico dead last and it isn’t particularly close. The report uses  a composite measure of three variables: the share of adults ages 25 to 54 who are married, the share of teens living with married parents, and the total fertility rate. 

The key chart associated with the report can be seen below with the following quote from the report explaining the situation: “New Mexico ranks last in the 2026 Family Structure Index. In many low-ranking states, low levels of religion, a tradition of family instability, low education, or a high cost of living are associated with scoring lower on one or more measures of the FSI.”

It is worth noting that while government policy can’t improve upon ALL of these issues it CAN move them in a positive (or negative) direction. Once the child winds up with CYFD it is almost always due to one or more family failures. More government programs are simply not likely to improve ANY of these issues and thus are doomed to fail while spending untold sums of taxpayer dollars.