38 is the percentage of new jobs in New Mexico that aren’t expected to pay wages providing economic security.
$21,888 is the average annual income a single worker needs to have economic security in New Mexico.
$27,600 is the average annual income a single worker needs to have economic security in Santa Fe.
" We really need to raise wages, as Santa Fe was willing to do a couple of years ago. Those wages need to be indexed to the cost of living, and we also need to return to the time when we had health insurance. There’s been a huge risk shift away from employers and onto individual families."—Ona Porter, CEO and president of Prosperity Work
New economic data created to estimate living expenses in New Mexico suggests that new jobs created over the next decade won’t necessarily pay well enough to provide any New Mexicans with economic security, let alone Santa Feans.
The Basic Economic Security Tables (BEST) Index finds that most job growth expected will be in relatively low-paying sectors such as home health care, retail, construction and office work. Jobs in those sectors often don’t pay enough to allow economic security—that is, to provide workers with enough money to save for their children’s education and retirement at the same time as keeping up with rising health care costs.
State Sen. Eric Griego, D-Bernalillo, who is also the executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, says the report confirms a trend he had already been leery of—New Mexico’s focus on attracting any type of job to the state, regardless of pay or benefits rates.
“When you look at the indicators that the business-recruitment people talk about, [our economic development strategy] is ‘New Mexico is a low-cost place to do business,’” Griego says. “Instead of marketing ourself as a place that pays low wages, we ought to be thinking, ‘Come to New Mexico; we have a great quality of life’…instead of this marketing that we’re like Southeast Asia, only closer.”
"Raising wages" cannot happen out of thin air. Working hard at a job doesn't equate to getting paid well.
When a job is a commodity, wihich a lot of people can do, or the product of that job is of low value, wages are going to be lower. This basic of economics is something we can talk about and dislike, but it is like gravity. 2 2=4, no matter how much we dislike it.
Also, jobs differ in the collateral jobs they tend to support. heavy or technical industries tend to support more collateral jobs with higher pay, as much as 9 jobs per primary job. With all respect to home health care or other such jobs, they don't create or support much collateral employment. It isn't all a function of the wages paid in the primary job, with, though this has an impact at the extremes.
NM has to decide the kind of jobs it wants, and live with the results. Home healthcare workers cannot make $50K just because. It's frustrating, but a reality that intrudes sooner or later. Greece is finding out now in a horrible way how reality bites. I hope NM will not go the same route by setting unsustainable and unrealistic expectations.
Roughly one in five New Mexicans are now food stamp recipients.
About 40 percent lack health coverage.
We are one of the top ten states for poor nourishment, primarily due to an inadequate food distribution system.
We can't continue to play the game the same way and think we'll have a better outcome.
We should embrace the Health Security Act for New Mexicans, and make sure ALL New Mexicans have access to health care. This can be done at a cost SAVINGS by eliminating the for-profit greedfest that is the health insurance racket.
We need to de-Walmartize and de-McDonaldize our food chain.
And we need to push through the legislation that Tejana Susana pocket-vetoed last session that would require government entities purchasing food to purchase at least a small amount from New Mexico producers.
We are being bled dry by chains and franchises. Lets work to keep what money we do have here local, and we'll all be a lot better off.