Premier Heather Stefanson along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced this morning that they are expanding eligibility to its Child Care Subsidy program starting Sunday, February 6.
The announcement will result in almost half of the spots being subsidized at child care facilities in Manitoba.
The subsidy will reduce the out-of-pocket fees spent by families by an average of 30 percent.
This change will ensure that the province stays on track to achieve a joint commitment in the Canada- Manitoba Canad-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) agreement to reduce the out-of-pocket fees put forth by parents by 50 percent by Dec 31, 2022.
The Child Care Subsidy Program provides assistance to families that are eligible by reducing child-care fees for children 12 weeks to 12 years of age and of the 38,000 spaces available in the regulated child-care system, 6,000 children, or 16 percent, currently receive a full or partial child-care subsidy.
With this new increase in eligibility, it’s estimated that it will help an additional 12,000 children receive support to access regulated child care, particularly in low and middle-income families.
This will triple the number of children that are currently supported in regulated child care with their families now being eligible for a child-care subsidy.
In order to initiate this change, the province will increase the net household income thresholds and allowable deductions for the Child Care Subsidy program by 45 percent which will make the full subsidy eligibility from $23,833 to $37,116 and partial subsidy to $37,542 to $82,877.
For more on this, you can head to the Provinces website here.
