New Mexico workforce participation still lags (plus further analysis from LFC)

The Rio Grande Foundation has been tracking and discussing New Mexico’s low workforce participation rate for several years. The chart below covers the time period dating back to pre-pandemic January 2020. As you can see, New Mexico’s rate remains much lower than its neighbors’ rates and both New Mexico and Arizona have NOT recovered from the pandemic.  You can find the raw data here.

In their post-session review, the Legislative Finance Committee also looked at workforce participation rates over time among men and women (using separate data set) and found some troubling info. The following charts are from their report. Although the LFC report does not explain their choices, the following charts show New Mexico’s low an worsening workforce participation rate for groups of prime working age adults: