Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) speaks about Democrats’ plan to support parents of young children at a news conference in the Michigan Capitol Building alongside other Democrats and child welfare advocates on Mar. 12, 2025 | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols
Democrats in the Michigan Senate are proposing tax credits, stipends and subsidized childcare in order to support the state’s workforce and grow the population.
The first few years of a child’s life is considered the most expensive time period in a child’s life, lawmakers and early childhood development stakeholders said during a news conference Wednesday announcing a plan to offset some of the costs.
Building off the momentum of Democrats expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC for working families, in 2023, Sen. Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores), said the new proposal includes a tax credit of $5,500 for families with children under the age of 3.
“When we let parents keep more of their hard earned money, they’re not only able to afford the necessities, but plan for the future and give their kids better opportunities than what they had growing up,” Hertel said. “It gives everybody a better chance here in Michigan to succeed and the positive effects of this extend far beyond just the family household. This is the type of policy that works to uplift entire communities.”
With the rising costs of living and unaffordable costs of childcare, the cost of being a parent in Michigan is unsustainable, Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) said citing Michigan Association of United Ways ALICE numbers that 41% of households in Michigan struggle to afford basics like housing, health care and food.
The average annual cost of childcare per child in Michigan is about $9,000, according to Child Care Aware of America.
When families can’t afford the basics, Michigan businesses suffer by having fewer customers, McMorrow said, straining the job market and cyclically damaging the state’s economy.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the state economy hard, McMorrow added, and families need a boost to be able to thrive.
“One of the major reasons families have not recovered from the devastating impact of the pandemic is because we lack the infrastructure to adequately support parenthood,” McMorrow said. “Senate Democrats are in your corner…But we’re still up against a system that has ignored the financial struggles of parents instead prioritizing the needs of billionaires and big corporations.”
Democrats’ new plan calls for codifying the MI Tri-Share program, which splits child care costs between employers, the state, and employees, into the state budget. Additionally, Democrats are committing to expanding accessibility for new childcare centers to open.
As a pediatrician, one of the hardest conditions for families to overcome is poverty, said Dr. Mona Hanna, the Flint pediatrician who helped expose the impact of the Flint Water Crisis in 2014.
“When babies are born into and grow up in poverty, it is a pathogen. It makes kids sick. It impacts their entire life course, it impacts their potential,” Hanna said.
But the state has started making moves to reduce poverty’s sting on families, Hanna said, noting the successes of the program she is a director for, Rx Kids, which supplies cash payments to moms in Flint, Kalamazoo and in the Upper Peninsula.
In Flint, Hanna said Rx Kids has distributed over $7 million since the beginning of 2024 to more than 1500 families who use the funds for baby supplies, costs of housing, transportation and childcare. The program offers $1,500 to moms during pregnancy, then $500 monthly in the baby’s first year of life, regardless of income.
Families are experiencing better healthcare outcomes in Flint because of monthly stipends from Rx Kids, Hanna said, adding that the program is repairing broken trust in health care and government organizations, a meaningful lift for the families hurt by the lead contamination from the water crisis.
The goal now for Democrats is expanding the Rx Kids program statewide in order to break poverty’s far reaching impact, Hanna said. Early support for kids and families keep them healthy and able to perform in educational and economic systems.
“Any investment in early childhood has a massive return on investment. For something like Rx Kids, it’s a trickle up program. Those dollars get spent locally, so it’s an economic development program, but also, in the long run, you have less costs in child welfare because it’s preventing child welfare involvement,” Hanna said. “Those societal savings may not be seen right away, but any investment in early childhood reaps a massive return on investment.”
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