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Panelists cite misclassification, fragmented systems and funding hurdles as key barriers to workforce data
Summary
New Mexico officials said misclassification of workers as contractors, fragmented agency systems, and technical and funding barriers complicate consistent wage and demographic data collection for direct care workers.
Panelists from New Mexico said the inventory exercise uncovered several persistent barriers to reliable workforce counts and wage data: fragmented systems across agencies, inconsistent reporting practices, misclassification of workers as independent contractors and limits to current technical infrastructure.
"There is a big issue with misclassification or workers are...misclassified as independent contractors rather than employees," Raquel Gomez said, noting that unemployment insurance and wage records may therefore undercount some direct care workers. Panelists also described bureaucratic hurdles tied to shifting federal priorities, reliance on legislative appropriation for tools, and the need for data‑sharing agreements and vendor cooperation (EVV, FMS, registries) to link programmatic datasets.
They highlighted the "benefits cliff" as a workforce retention concern—raising pay without accommodating related benefit changes can reduce workers’ net security—and urged statewide coordination rather than isolated agency efforts to scale solutions.
