Three takeaways from Sen. Heinrich's early childhood education roundtable

Jul. 16—U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich hosted a roundtable Monday with child care providers and community leaders at the Social Enterprise Center in the South Valley, and according to participants, low wages are driving workers out of the field.

"I learned that we're making a lot of progress on child care and early childhood education, but that there are still a lot of friction points, and we need to continue to be responsive and fill those needs for professional development, training and the financial challenges that these very small businesses have," the New Mexico Democrat said.

In March, Heinrich secured $250,000 in congressionally directed spending for the Partnership for Community Action's Quality Child Care Matters Program, which supports small businesses that provide early childhood services. Nichelle Gilbert, Partnership for Community Action executive director, facilitated the roundtable.

1. Pay for child care workers needs to increase to keep workers in the field.

The wage and career ladder for early child care workers lags behind other states, said Karen Meija, owner of the Avengers Learning Center in Albuquerque.

For 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that, nationally, child care workers were making an average hourly wage of $15.42 and an average annual wage of $32,070. New Mexico's annual child care worker wage was slightly below the national average, at $14.54 hourly and $30,250 annually, and significantly lower than neighboring Colorado, with an average hourly pay of $18.39, and Arizona, with an average hourly pay of $17.81. Texas' average hourly pay was slightly below New Mexico's, at $14.16.

Money is key to child care businesses surviving long term, said Valeria Holloway, who has over 20 years of experience in early childhood education and owns her own business, Best of the Southwest Daycare in Las Cruces. She would like to see the federal government invest more money in early childhood education so that businesses can retain workers.

2. New Mexico's constitutional amendment has made a difference for child care providers.

In 2022, New Mexico guaranteed a right to early childhood education with a voter-approved constitutional amendment that allowed Land Grant Permanent Funds to be used for early childhood education. Heinrich played a role by helping change the law that originally let New Mexico into the United States, so that the state could alter its constitution.

Meija said that constitutional amendment has helped her keep employees, and several child care providers thanked Heinrich for his support of the amendment.

"If a child goes into kindergarten, has no early childhood education, none, then when a child gets to kindergarten, they're five years behind," Holloway said. "Even just social emotional skills, they don't know how to interact with other children, they don't have just the basics of learning the alphabet or being able to count."

3. Heinrich wants to increase the child care tax credit.

Heinrich used the roundtable to promote a proposed increase in the child care tax credit to a maximum of $4,000 per child.

"Without something like a child care tax credit, many parents just don't have the resources to necessarily be paying more," Heinrich said.

Heinrich believes that the child care tax credit could encourage financial growth, even for the federal government.

"The lack of child care right now is acting as friction for the entire economy," Heinrich said. "So as you get these kids into quality child care, you're also opening up an entire workforce that right now is staying at home and doing child care instead of doing whatever they were trained to do. So, I think we would see a lot higher workforce participation in New Mexico if we can figure this out."