The annual accounting for child well-being in New Mexico has been released in the form of the 2022 NM KIDS COUNT Data Book, which was released on Wednesday.
The data collected touches on a range of topics from demographics, COVID-19 hardships, economic well-being, education, health and family and community.
A major theme of the present throughout the book is how children and their families are recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly two years later, families in New Mexico have seen slight improvements to relief efforts.
While the pandemic harmed many New Mexicans, especially those who are paid low wages, both state and federal relief helped mitigate that damage.
In addition to this, New Mexico also increased tax credits for families and used federal funds to expand food security measures and child care assistance, all of which helped families, workers and providers.
Research and Policy Analyst and KIDS COUNT coordinator Emily Wildau said these decisions by elected leaders helped ensure families experienced a smooth recovery as the effects of the pandemic lessened.
“These common sense decisions and others passed since 2019 not only continue to support the recovery of New Mexico kids and families as we learn to live with COVID, but also have prevented us from seeing worse outcomes for child well-being in 2021 data.”
This was a report released at the beginning of the 60-day legislative session and given to lawmakers to give them some sort of idea of the needs of children and families across the state.