The state of New Mexico in 2025 made headlines for being the first in the nation to enact free universal child care. A 12-year-long grassroots push by advocacy groups and activists to address the dismal state of child well-being resulted in Gov. Michele Lujan Grisham signing a bill to expand eligibility for no-cost, government-provided child care to all the state’s residents, regardless of income.

It was a historic bill, one that paved the way for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani to enact a similar program.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, enrollment in New Mexico’s government-provided child care centers jumped over the past year, with 15,000 new enrollees recorded since the program was launched. But waitlists are also growing as demand rapidly outpaces supply. And dire stories are emerging, such as Vox Media’s June 2026 story headlined “How to Screw Up Universal Childcare.”

So, what has gone wrong?

Expanding free child care to meet growing need isn’t as simple as opening new facilities and enrolling families. Early childhood education requires well-trained staff who are paid generously enough to remain on the job. And that appears to be the biggest obstacle to fully realizing New Mexico’s pioneering program and ensuring that all those who need child care get it.

A June 2026 report by the child advocacy group New Mexico Voices for Children (NM Voices), examined every aspect of child well-being in the state including “early childhood education” — which is the term preferred by advocates to describe child care. The report concluded that, in spite of great strides, New Mexico was falling short in serving the families who need most help, and urged policy makers to “build on recent progress by strengthening the early childhood workforce, expanding access to high-quality programs and ensuring students receive the academic and social supports they need to succeed.”

Enrollment in New Mexico’s government-provided child care centers jumped over the past year, with 15,000 new enrollees recorded.

Matthew Henderson, executive director of OLÉ Education Fund, which helps organize child care workers, underscored how “the universal child care system is definitely something to celebrate, and we do celebrate it because it has given thousands of parents free child care, saving them tens of thousands of dollars.” And Gov. Lujan Grisham, who leaves office at the end of the year, has pinned her legacy to New Mexico’s early childhood education program and hopes it offers a model for the rest of the nation. She told the Associated Press, “My hope is, as we watch elections take hold around the country, that our congressional candidates are talking about these investments, our gubernatorial candidates are talking about these investments” in child care.

And yet, according to Henderson, “there are still parents who can’t access [the program] because the administration has not been smart about how to grow the state’s capacity.”

Child care workers, who are disproportionately low-income women of color, and who are charged with caring for the most vulnerable members of society, are also egregiously underpaid. Although New Mexico’s early educators are now compensated as much as $16-$19 an hour — which is higher than the state’s $12-an-hour minimum wage — it’s not nearly enough to prevent constant turnover and worker shortages.

The New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD), which is the government agency overseeing the state’s child care centers, announced a “wage and career lattice” for employees “to support long-term recruitment and retention.” Henderson lauded the approach as “really excellent,” but accused the administration of “slow-walking any attempts to implement professional compensation for the workforce.”

Teresa Madrid, executive director of a New Mexico-based advocacy organization called Partnership for Community Action agreed, telling the Santa Fe New Mexican that the “wage and career lattice is something that has been part of ECECD’s strategic plan for the last several years, and we are now in 2026 with no implementation, no action and no dollars committed to that wage and career lattice.”

The goal is to reach pay parity with K-12 teachers, because, as Henderson asked, “how can you create tons of new early educators if you’re paying poverty wages?”

It’s hard to answer why exactly the state is delaying pay raises for child care workers other than the fact that any major state-based program takes time and effort to properly manage and roll out. “I don’t know if it is a lack of respect for workers,” said Henderson. But “that’s certainly how a lot of our members are taking it.”

By delaying implementation of salary raises for child care workers, the state risks undermining one of the few programs that has made it past austerity arguments and the prevailing conservative desire to cut government-funded social programs.

Critics are applying the same arguments against New Mexico’s child care system as they do against things like health care for all: that making the program universal means some people who can afford to pay out-of-pocket could potentially benefit. New Mexico’s Republican Party refers to universal child care as “Nannies for Millionaires.”

But removing all income requirements is precisely what makes the program so attractive. Even families who were eligible for state-funded child care years ago did not apply for it until the program was expanded to everyone. “Only when it was announced that it was a universal program did it really change how people thought of it as a benefit for all, not just for lower-income people,” said Henderson. He attributed this to “perhaps a welfare stigma” around programs that require proof of income eligibility.

Instead, he suggested people begin thinking of early childhood education as part of what advocates call “the cradle to college system.” If K-12 public education is a state-funded right, one that ensures equity, access, and quality, then why not early childhood education?

And, just as K-12 education in New Mexico does not discriminate against immigrants, neither does the newly enacted child care program. “Universal,” means everyone, regardless of income or immigration status.

The sharp demand for child care is a clear indication of what families desperately need, especially at a time of ongoing economic insecurity. “We have people in our movement who are middle-class and say how their two young children getting free child care is now saving them $40,000 a year,” said Henderson.

States and cities looking to launch a similar program must plan for proper compensation of child care workers at the outset, and not as an afterthought.

The challenge for advocacy organizations like NM Voices and OLÉ Education Fund is to maintain strong pressure on the state to preserve and strengthen the universal child care program while countering arguments such as ballooning government costs. Any program delivering high-quality and necessary services for families will incur a significant price tag. And that, according to Henderson, is something people need to accept.

The child care program is currently about 10 percent of the state budget and growing, which Henderson said is “wonderful.” Still, he said, “it has created from more austerity-minded legislators, the sense that it’s too much, the budget can’t grow any further.” But in order to be properly enacted, more funding is needed to pay workers professional-level wages.

“It is not about logic with some people, it’s about power,” said Henderson. He affirmed that OLÉ Education Fund will “continue to organize early educators to have a strong, united voice so that they can really demand and get what they want.”

Advocates of universal child care all over the country are eyeing New Mexico’s rollout. Henderson advised that other states and cities looking to launch a similar program must plan for proper compensation of child care workers at the outset, and not as an afterthought. And if that raises the price tag, so be it.

“When you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, people are going to fight about it,” said Henderson. “Even when it’s something that seems like an obvious public good, like child care, people are going to fight about it.”