MALDEN, Mass. — Little feet and little hands tried their hardest to stay still as state senators read to children in Head Start classrooms in Malden on Thursday. They were there to introduce a bill they said would make child care programs like this largely more accessible for families, realistic for providers and sustainable for teachers.

The Massachusetts Senate introducing child care legislation they say will help families, child care centers, and teachers. 

“You love to read? I love to hear that!” said Senator Robyn Kennedy (D-Worcester) to a class of pre-schoolers. 

The bill, called the EARLY Ed Act aims to raise the threshold for families to apply for child care subsidies. 

Right now, a family of four with an income of under $73,000/year is the qualification for child care subsidies. This bill would raise that to $124,000/year, meaning more families qualify. 

Senate President Karen Spilka said this is something the state needs to be more competitive and keep families here. 

“I think that the legislators, the administration, realize that this is really critical for Massachusetts as a whole, as a whole entire state, for the reasons that I said and others here have said. I think that it's doable and I believe that we need to get this done,” Spilka said.

It doesn’t stop there though; the Senate’s bill goes as far as increasing pay for child care workers to be like that of public school teachers to help retain the talent. It also helps daycare centers open more classrooms without passing on the costs to the families. 

Senator Rebecca Rausch it's not just families that will benefit from this bill.

“Everybody will benefit statewide. And even if you're not a family with a child in the 0 to 12 age brackets, you're still going to benefit because child care is infrastructure,” Rausch said. “We see it over and over. Businesses can't thrive and proceed or even function really without functioning, quality, affordable, attainable early education and after school care.”

The Senate passed a bill like this back in 2022, but it did not pass the House. This current bill is similar but Senate leaders said this one is better. The line item in the budget for early child care is $1.5 billion, although the exact cost of this program is unclear. 

Spectrum News 1 reached out to Republican Senator Ryan Fattman, who has been vocal about the cost of child care to get his thoughts on this plan. His office said he was not available Thursday.