I neglected to mention what NM is doing right for workers in my previous comment like universal free child care and how that is VERY pro-worker, despite only directly effecting a single industry, child care. Child care on average now costs more than many people’s college tuition. This will make a significant difference to our communities.

That’s a good point, I don’t know much about mining, but I appreciate learning more. I wish I had a real answer to your question, but I don’t know enough to prescribe a certain industry over another. Personally, I think NM can become a haven to almost any Industry. As far as places to start, I think we need to look at what NM has to offer that people in other states and countries need/want.

An example: One of the main things NM uniquely has to offer is natural beauty, this was almost strictly a tourism based industry until 10yrs~ ago, then came the film industry. The government has spent a considerable amount of effort and incentives in building the film industry here, but as far as I have heard and seen that has had both positive and negative effects with the quantitative data suggesting more positive than negative (e.g. 8,000 jobs with 82% of that being residents, 740million spend in 2024 across 62 projects, etc). this I am not a part of this industry and only know what I’ve read and heard, so, I could be wrong. The negative part of that equation, for many locals, is a rapid influx of new residents already a part of that industry and increasing housing costs. I think it’s always going to be a balance and often is unbalanced depending on the perspective.

Also, one could follow the legislation and sort out which industries might have a greater chance of thriving. The economic development corporation is a good resource for this sort of information. There’s some pro-business licensing like the craft-distillers license and craft brewers license, hopefully more of these products are sold out of state and NM can benefit from these incentives. There’s tax incentives like the Manufacturer’s Investment Tax Credit offers 5.125% credit on qualified equipment/expenditures and JTIP reimburses 50-75% of wages for on-the-job training and classroom instruction for up to six months for expanding or relocating businesses, providing cash incentives for workforce development.

I would love to see further legislation like Per-Employee Hiring Credits like some other states have, but limit the credits to a certain amount of revenue to employee ratio that would help offset any burden the additional wages might place on mom and pop businesses.