Like many families, Jessica and Adrian Garcia, who live in the mountain resort town of Ruidoso, New Mexico, had to cobble together different child care options for their son when they returned to work after his birth in 2023.

In August 2021, New Mexico expanded subsidized free child care to households earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line — at the time, $87,840 for a family of three. The Garcias earned too much to qualify.

Jessica, who works at the local branch of Eastern New Mexico University, and Adrian, a police officer, settled for a part-time day care schedule two days a week that cost $300 a month for their son to attend daycare two days a week because they couldn’t afford full-time hours. Jessica’s mother also pitched in to help. At the time, Adrian had to bargain constantly with his boss to juggle graveyard shifts and child care, and if his schedule changed, his wife and mother-in-law both had to rearrange their own work on short notice to accommodate his.

Before long, Jessica received an ultimatum from her job: If she couldn’t work full-time hours consistently, she would be demoted to a part-time position and lose the family’s health insurance benefits.

Their luck turned last November when New Mexico became the first state in the country to launch free, universal child care for children from birth through age 13, regardless of household income. The expansion to a truly universal program “was just a big blessing to us,” said Jessica, who was able to enroll her son in full-time care. “It’s been a huge help.”

New Mexico garnered a wave of attention when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced in September that all of the state’s families would be eligible for child care assistance. “Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation, and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” she said at the time.

Read the full article about universal child care in New Mexico by Karen Fischer at The Hechinger Report.