MA Senate unanimously approves bill to make child care more affordable

• The Massachusetts Senate unanimously approved a bill aimed at improving the accessibility and affordability of early education and child care.
• The bill would expand state subsidies to help families pay for child care and make existing subsidies for child care providers permanent.
• Senate President Karen Spilka expressed the need for affordable child care, comparing it to the cost of sending a child to college.

The Massachusetts Senate on Thursday passed a bill that supporters say will help make early education and child care more accessible and affordable at a time when child care costs have become an economic hurdle for families across the state. It was approved unanimously.

The bill would expand state subsidies to help families afford child care. It would also create a permanent subsidy that currently provides monthly direct payments to early education and child care providers.

These grants will support more than 90% of the state’s early education and child care programs, allowing many to keep their doors open during the pandemic, reduce tuition costs, and increase compensation for early childhood educators. , has been credited with contributing to expanding the number of enrolled students. Supporters of the bill say it would create child care slots across the state.

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“Massachusetts has some of the highest child care costs in the state. It’s the equivalent of sending your child to college,” Democratic Senate President Karen Spilka said at a rally outside the state Capitol before the Senate opened. Stated. “We need to make child care and early education more affordable and accessible.”

Spilka said the bill would help stabilize early education programs while increasing pay and creating a career ladder for early educators to turn their work into long-term careers.

Alejandra de la Cruz, 34, an early childhood teacher at Ellis Early Learning in Boston’s South End neighborhood, said she loves her job. But she said the center is struggling to keep classrooms open because of the difficulty in filling her teacher vacancies.

“I can’t blame them for leaving. They have the right to earn a decent living,” said Dela Cruz, who has worked at the center for three years.

“I look forward to a time when my salary will meet my family’s basic needs, such as living closer to work, buying healthier groceries, and occasionally treating my family to dinner at a restaurant,” she says. added.

The proposal would also expand eligibility for child care subsidies to households earning up to 85% of the state’s median income ($124,000 for a family of four). It would eliminate cost-sharing for households below the federal poverty line and cap fees at 7% of income for all other households receiving subsidies.

Under the plan, the subsidy program for households earning up to 125% of the state median income ($182,000 for a family of four) would be expanded in the future as funding becomes available.

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Spilka said the bill is another step toward fulfilling the Legislature’s commitment to providing quality educational opportunities for the state’s children from birth to adulthood.

The bill would create a matching grant pilot program designed to provide incentives for employers to invest in new early childhood education slots, targeting low-income households and households in so-called child care deserts. Projects are prioritized.

The bill also updates the cost-sharing amount for families participating in the child care subsidy program every five years, establishes a pilot program to support small early education and child care programs, and There is also a need to increase the maximum number of It is provided by large family child care programs similar to programs in New York, California, Illinois, and Maryland.

The bill is currently before the Massachusetts House of Representatives.