新墨西哥在11月1日推出全民免费托儿计划，使所有家庭有资格获得补贴，覆盖六周至青少年期的儿童，政府估计每名儿童每年补贴价值12,800美元。该计划在2022年公投中获得70%的选民支持，资金来自自2018年以来增长四倍的石油和天然气收入，并被存入信托基金用于支持准北欧式的福利扩张。
该政策应对严重需求：排除政府支持，四分之一儿童生活在贫困中，本州领取食品券家庭比例为全美最高。2010年至2022年间，有幼儿母亲的劳动力参与率上升了12个百分点。但供应受限：每100名两岁以下儿童仅有32个托儿名额，州估计需要另外5,000名工作人员来照看12,000名儿童，自2020年以来托儿相关毕业生增加了15%，背景审查人数从去年300人跃升至上月的1,000人；圣菲社区学院有630人的等候名单。
挑战包括在地广人稀的州扩大托儿中心规模、避免其他普惠托育方案中出现的质量下降，并确保财政可持续：托儿预算仅有资金至2026年底，领导人警告信托基金不是无限的。新墨西哥根据高质量托育的真实成本设定费率（现在高于父母此前支付的水平），但批评者指出在其他地区复制此模式代价高昂——例如，若纽约按新墨西哥的人均支出计算，每年大约需要46亿美元至70亿美元。
New Mexico rolled out universal free child care on Nov 1, making all families eligible and covering children from six weeks to adolescence with subsidies estimated at $12,800 per child per year. The program won 70% voter support in a 2022 ballot measure and is funded by oil-and-gas revenues that have quadrupled since 2018 and are held in a trust intended to underwrite a quasi‑Nordic welfare expansion.
The policy addresses acute need: excluding government support, 1 in 4 children live in poverty and the state has the highest share of families on food stamps. Between 2010 and 2022, maternal workforce participation for mothers with young children rose 12 percentage points. But supply is constrained: there are only 32 child-care spaces for every 100 children under two, the state estimates it needs 5,000 more workers to care for 12,000 children, child-care graduates rose 15% since 2020, and background checks jumped to 1,000 last month from 300 a year earlier; Santa Fe Community College has a waiting list of 630.
Challenges include expanding centers across a sparsely populated state, preventing quality erosion seen in other universal schemes, and fiscal sustainability: the child-care budget is funded only through 2026 and leaders warn the trust fund is finite. New Mexico sets rates based on the cost of high‑quality care (now higher than parents previously paid), but critics note that replicating this model elsewhere would be costly—for example, New York would need roughly $4.6bn–$7bn annually to match New Mexico’s per‑child spending.