New Mexico’s Broken-Record Poverty Rate

It received very little media attention, but the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey figures on state-level poverty yielded ho-hum news for New Mexico.

From 2013 to 2014, the poverty rate in the Land of Enchantment fell slightly, from 21.9 percent to 21.3 percent. (Only Mississippi fared worse.)

A look at poverty in the era of the Great Recession/Weak Recovery shows how little progress has been made:

Centrally planned economic development, a too-generous welfare state, no right-to-work law, little innovation in government education, and a cumbersome and pervasive tax on gross receipts. Is it any wonder New Mexico can’t escape its poverty trap?