Part of the Series
The Struggle for Caregiving Equity
Americans are used to struggling for basic necessities while their tax dollars fund wars and prop up big businesses. So when they are offered something as fundamental as child care at no additional cost, the response is often: “What’s the catch?” That’s how some residents of New Mexico are responding to a first-of-its-kind program in the United States where, starting on November 1, 2025, parents, regardless of their income, will be able to avail themselves of government-funded child care.
While mainstream media outlets are crediting New Mexico’s Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with ushering in universal child care, it’s crucial to recognize that a vibrant, grassroots, bottom-up movement began laying the ground work years earlier. Andrea Serrano is a lifelong New Mexican and executive director of OLÉ, which stands for “Organizers in the Land of Enchantment.” She pointed out that “for years New Mexico teetered between 48th, 49th and 50th in the ‘States for child wellbeing.’”
To address such dire circumstances, social justice organizations (including OLÉ) in 2010 first introduced the idea of government-funded child care for all residents. “There is no reason why families should be having to choose between paying the rent or paying their mortgage and paying for child care,” said Serrano.
With the understanding that opposition to such a program would likely be based on its cost, organizers named a clearly identifiable funding source: royalties that oil and gas companies pay to New Mexico for leasing lands.
Instead of casting it as a new program, organizers presented as the extension of an existing program by adopting the term “early childhood education” to describe child care. Voters are used to the idea of publicly funded K-12 school and therefore, extending government funding of pre-K education and care was not much of a stretch.
“The idea,” according to Serrano, “was to increase the [royalties] payout for education … so that it can cover early childhood education.” The increase is small — only 1.25 percent.
But, guaranteeing child care to all residents required voters to approve the matter as a constitutional amendment. And in order for that to happen, the state legislature first needed to pass a resolution approving such an amendment. “For 10 years, the legislature blocked the constitutional amendment from going before voters,” said Serrano.
That’s a decade of people being unable to afford child care for their children, being forced into poverty, or even making the choice to not have children because of the high cost.
So, groups like OLÉ played the long game. They organized to unseat the handful of New Mexico’s lawmakers blocking the constitutional amendment for child care funding, and replaced them with people Serrano called “values-aligned” legislators. In other words, they engaged the nuts and bolts of local democracy to achieve their goal.
“In a state like New Mexico that has a mix of ideologies … to get 70 percent of the vote was huge.”
Such an approach was politically savvy. In 2021, New Mexico’s legislature finally passed a resolution to put the question of universal child care funding on the ballot and in late 2022, voters were allowed to decide on the matter directly. They voted overwhelmingly to approve it.
“In a state like New Mexico that has a mix of ideologies … to get 70 percent of the vote was huge,” said Serrano.
New Mexico already had a state-level agency to tackle child care, called the Early Childhood Education and Care Department, which covered child care costs for families with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. In September 2025, Governor Grisham announced this coverage would be expanded to cover all families regardless of their income, fulfilling voters’ wishes.
At a time when wealth continues to be redistributed to the top echelons of society, government-funded child care can have a serious impact on families’ bottom lines. “We’re going to see families saving, on average, about $12,000 a year” in New Mexico, said Serrano. “That is huge.”
Like elder care, child care suffers from multiple intersecting problems of rising costs, constant demand, labor shortages, and low wages. By virtue of being a basic necessity that requires an enormous amount of human labor, child care is often financially unsustainable in a society with stagnant wages and high inflation — unless government steps in to subsidize it.
New Mexico’s universal child care program will guarantee higher wages for child care workers to the tune of $18 and $21 an hour.
Further, child care workers are disproportionately women of color and immigrant women, who make poverty-level wages caring for people’s children. The average child care worker makes just over $12 an hour. To address this issue, New Mexico’s universal child care program will guarantee higher wages for child care workers to the tune of $18 and $21 an hour.
The U.S. birthrate fell to an all-time low this year, and that’s not merely because people are uninterested in procreating — which is a valid position. It’s also because it is too expensive to have children. New Mexico may offer hope for those who want kids but can’t afford to have them.
A Model in the Face of Federal Inaction
An early version of President Joe Biden’s signature Build Back Better legislation included $400 billion in national funding for child care and pre-K education, which could have heavily subsidized child care costs for parents across the nation. But thanks to conservative Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, that provision was stripped out before it went to a vote.
Now, under current President Donald Trump, even long-standing government-funded programs such as Medicaid are under attack, with no chance of public funding for new programs such as early education and universal child care.
In the absence of federal action, left-leaning candidates such as New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are running for office on platforms of delivering universal child care.
While most municipalities don’t have access to a special fossil-fuel-funded pot of money as New Mexico does — nor would it be prudent to rely for the long term on a product that jeopardizes children’s future — there are plenty of other ways to fund universal child care. “There’s always money to be found when there’s the will to do it,” said Serrano. Mamdani’s campaign, for example, seeks to increase taxes on corporations and his city’s wealthiest residents to pay for child care.
“There’s always money to be found when there’s the will to do it.”
Like New Mexico’s efforts, the battle for universal child care in New York City began at the grassroots. “There are so many New Yorkers, especially those in my generation now, who are looking to start families here, raise their children here and want to be able to afford to do so,” said Jagpreet Singh, political director for DRUM Beats, an offshoot of the South Asian community organization Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM). Singh’s group endorsed Mamdani for mayor early on, and rallied support among South Asian residents of New York City — a group that has traditionally had low voter turnout.
“By the time the Cuomos and Adamses came to them, it was already too late,” said Singh. “We had already built up the name of Zohran, talked a lot about the policies like the rent freeze campaign or universal child care, which really bolstered the working-class community to support him and locked down the support within our community.”
Mamdani handily beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June. Singh is not worried that the November election, which will see a rematch between the two candidates, will turn out any differently. “[Mamdani] doesn’t have to change his tune” on the issue of universal child care even when facing the general electorate, he said.
Serrano feels strongly that the long and hard work of mobilizing voters around such popular issues bears fruit. “It might sound to some people that it isn’t possible,” she said. “And it is, it absolutely is. It takes years and there’s a tenacity that has to come with it as well. But it also is about: How are you creating the issue environment and how are you electing the folks who are going to make it happen?”
Publicly funded government programs for basic necessities are popular — and it’s no wonder. Taxpayers pool their money to pay for the common good. And what could fit such a definition better than the care of our children?
Before you go — An urgent appeal for your support
Truthout relies on individual donations to publish independent journalism, free from political and corporate influence. In fact, we’re almost entirely funded by readers like you.
Unfortunately, donations are down. At a moment when our journalism is most necessary, we are struggling to meet our operational costs due to worsening political censorship.
Truthout may end this month in the red without additional help, so we’ve launched a fundraiser. We have 10 days to hit our $50,000 goal. Please make a tax-deductible gift to Truthout at this critical time!