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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Morgan Lee and Savannah Peters

New Mexico’s promise of free child care comes with a fiscal escape hatch

Universal Child Care New Mexico - (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

An ambitious universal child care program aimed at fully footing the bill for working families across New Mexico is being enshrined into law, with state legislators making good on promises by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to make the state the first in the nation to offer such a program to families of all income levels.

As parents across the nation grapple with crippling daycare bills that threaten to keep them at home and out of the workforce, political leaders from New York to San Francisco have been angling to expand access to free and subsidized care. The political stakes are high as the potential for budget uncertainties and fraud looms large.

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