State Child Care Assistance Policies 2010: Massachusetts

•    Income eligibility limit: In 2010, a family of three in Massachusetts could qualify for child care assistance with an annual income up to $39,207 (214 percent of poverty, 50 percent of state median income).¹

•    Waiting list: Massachusetts had 22,426 children on the waiting list for child care assistance as of February 2010.

•    Parent copayments: In 2010, a family of three with an income at 100 percent of poverty ($18,310 a year) receiving child care assistance paid $119 per month, or 8 percent of its income in copayments. A family of three with an income at 150 percent of poverty ($27,465 a year) receiving child care assistance paid $195 per month, or 9 percent of its income in copayments.

•    Reimbursement rates: In 2010, Massachusetts’s reimbursement rates for child care providers serving families receiving child care assistance were below the federally recommended level—the 75th percentile of current market rates, which is the level designed to give families access to 75 percent of the providers in their community.
o    Massachusetts’s monthly reimbursement rate for center care for a four-year-old in the Greater Boston area was $355, or 31 percent, below the 75th percentile of current market rates for this type of care.
o    Massachusetts’s monthly reimbursement rate for center care for a one-year-old in the Greater Boston area was $851, or 42 percent, below the 75th percentile of current market rates for this type of care.

•    Tiered reimbursement rates:  In 2010, Massachusetts did not pay higher reimbursement rates for higher-quality care.²

•    Eligibility for parents searching for a job: In 2010, Massachusetts allowed parents to qualify for or continue receiving child care assistance for up to 8 weeks while searching for a job.³ 

¹In 2010, families already receiving assistance could continue doing so until their income reached $64,103. Also note that, for special needs care, the income limit to qualify for assistance was $64,103 and the exit eligibility limit was $78,415 in 2010.
²Massachusetts eliminated the tiered rates system it had in 2009 as it prepared to implement a new quality rating and improvement system with tiered rates; during the transition, all providers are paid at the highest rating tier that existed under the previous system.
³Parents can receive child care assistance while searching for a job for an additional 4 weeks (on top of the initial 8 weeks allowed) if they were laid off or there are other extraordinary circumstances.

Source: Karen Schulman and Helen Blank, State Child Care Assistance Policies 2010: New Federal Funds Help States Weather the Storm (Washington, DC: National Women’s Law Center, 2010). These data reflect policies as of February 2010, unless otherwise indicated.