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Advocates: New Mexico Child Poverty Still Near The Bottom

    

A new report says New Mexico continues to rank near the bottom in child poverty and the state has been slow to recover economically.

The New Mexico Voices for Children released Tuesday its annual New Mexico Kids Count report that also faulted state lawmakers for not presenting any new anti-poverty initiatives.

The report says the state ranked 48th nationally in child poverty. It also says that only four other states ranked lower than New Mexico in the percentage of children whose parents lacked full-time, year-round employment.

Veronica Garcia, the group's executive director, says the goal of the report is to compare New Mexico to itself annually and to push "bold, aggressive and appropriate" legislative action to address poverty in one of the nation's poorest states.

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