Summary

Implements the Michigan Child Development and Care (CDC) program — Michigan's CCDF child care subsidy (family brand "CDC Scholarship") — in PolicyEngine. The CDC subsidy is a provider reimbursement, not a percent-of-income copay: each eligible child's subsidy is the department hourly rate (looked up by provider type × star rating × age group) multiplied by block hours, capped at the child's authorized hours, minus a flat Family Contribution. Income only gates entry/exit eligibility and selects the Family Contribution band; it never scales the subsidy by a percentage.

This PR covers the current era only. The 2025-09-21 income/Family-Contribution scale and the highest-hours two-parent rule (effective 2024-11-03) are encoded at their actual effective dates. Prior-era values are documented in Historical Notes below for a follow-up backdating PR.

Closes #8626

Regulatory Authority

• BEM 703 — CDC Program Requirements (BPB 2026-010) — eligible children, need reasons, eligibility groups, asset and income tests
• BEM 706 — CDC Payments (BPB 2026-010) — block reimbursement schedule, Family Contribution, authorized-hours cap
• BEM 710 — CDC Need Calculation (BPB 2024-031) — biweekly need hours and authorized tiers, two-parent highest-hours rule
• BEM 205 — CDC Group Composition (BPB 2024-025) — program group = family size for the income scale
• RFT 270 — CDC Income Eligibility Scale and Provider Rates (RFB 2026-005) — income scale, Family Contribution bands/limits, hourly rate tables
• Michigan CCDF State Plan FFY 2025–2027 (ACF-118) — policy-choice cross-check: confirms entry = 200% FPL (reported as 54–58% SMI by family size, §2.2.4 / line 1651), exit = 85% SMI (§2.2), $1,000,000 asset limit (§2.2.6), the copayment tier structure (§3.1.2), and the 3-Star / Enhancing Quality copay waiver (§3.3.1 + RFT 270 p.3)
• Legal base: CCDBG Act (42 USC 9858 et seq.) as amended by the CCDBG Act of 2014 (Pub. L. 113-186); 45 CFR Parts 98 & 99; McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 USC 11431 et seq.)

Administered by MiLEAP (Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential); eligibility is determined through MDHHS Bridges, and policy lives in the MDHHS Bridges Eligibility Manual (BEM), so files use the mdhhs agency segment.

Income Eligibility Tests

A family qualifies through one of six eligibility groups; all groups are subject to the $1,000,000 asset test (BEM 703 p.14, the CCDF asset rule — effectively non-binding). Protective-services groups are assessed before income.

Five income-waived groups (no income test, Family Contribution waived):

Income-eligible group (income test + Family Contribution): gross monthly income of the program group must be at or below the entry limit at application and at or below the exit limit ongoing (BEM 703 p.17). The initial-applicant vs. enrolled-recipient distinction is modeled via the mi_ccap_enrolled boolean input, mirroring the two-threshold pattern used by NJ and WV.

Income Deductions & Exemptions

The CDC program counts the gross monthly income of the program group (BEM 703 p.13); there are no standard deductions. Counted income sources (income/countable_income/sources.yaml): employment income, self-employment income, Social Security retirement/disability/survivors, dividend income, interest income, rental income, pension income, veterans' benefits, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, alimony income, and child support received. SSI is not counted — the State Plan (§2.2.4.c) leaves public assistance uncounted, and SSI recipients are an income-waived group regardless (so it would never affect the income test or Family Contribution band).

Grandparent/guardian parent-substitute income is excluded by the manual (BEM 703 p.13) but is not separately tracked in the model (partial — noted below).

Income Standards

RFT 270 Table 1 (effective 2025-09-21). Columns are maximum monthly gross income. The Entry limit is column 2 of the seven-column table; the Exit limit is column 7. (Column 1 is an unlabeled lowest band that pairs with $0 Family Contribution. The header verification corrected the "Entry"/"Exit" label placement; the data values were already correct.) A single parent applying for one child is family size 2; family size 1 arises from the program-group definition. The scale stops at family size 10.

Basis of the limits (confirmed against the FFY 2025–2027 State Plan): entry is 200% FPL and exit is 85% SMI. The State Plan expresses entry as a percent of SMI (54–58% by family size, §2.2.4) for federal reporting but states the limits are "established and reported in terms of current SMI … even if the federal poverty level is used in implementing the program," and confirms explicitly that "program entrance is at 55% SMI (200% FPL)" for a family of three. These limits are therefore transcribed as dollar amounts from RFT 270 rather than computed as a live rate × FPG/SMI, because the published table is single-dated and rounded — a live rate would drift from the official figures as FPG and SMI uprate.

Benefit Calculation

The per-child biweekly subsidy is min(block_hours, authorized_hours) × hourly_rate − family_contribution, floored at zero, summed across the SPM unit, then converted from a two-week pay period to monthly using WEEKS_IN_YEAR / 2 / MONTHS_IN_YEAR (= 2.16667). mi_child_care_subsidies (YEAR) aggregates this into the federal child_care_subsidies total.

Authorized hours (authorized_hours/tiers.yaml, BEM 710 p.1 / BEM 706 p.2, p.13): biweekly need hours map to one of the tiers 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 90, capped at 90 per child per pay period. Need hours derive from each parent's activity hours (weekly_hours_worked_before_lsr). For two-parent households the program authorizes on the parent with the highest need hours (effective 2024-11-03; two_parent_uses_highest_hours.yaml), implemented as spm_unit.max over head/spouse hours. The meal-period, study/lab, and travel add-ons in the full BEM 710 need calculation are not tracked, so authorized hours are based on base activity hours only (partial).

Block reimbursement (block_hours/tiers.yaml, BEM 706 p.9, effective 2022-10-09): for Centers and Group & Family Homes, billing 1–30 hours pays the hourly rate × 30, 31–60 hours × 60, and 61+ hours × 90, then capped at the child's authorized hours. License-exempt providers have no block rate — they are paid hourly (hours × rate), capped at authorized hours (BEM 706 p.11; RFT 270 p.7). In a model without a separate "hours billed" input, paid hours equal the authorized tier at every tier.

Hourly rate (rates/center.yaml, rates/family_home.yaml, rates/exempt.yaml, RFT 270 p.4, effective 2024-09-22): a three-dimensional lookup over provider type × star/quality level × age group. Age groups (age_group/thresholds.yaml, RFT 270 p.4) are Infant/Toddler (birth up to 2.5 years), Preschool (2.5 up to 5), and School Age (5 and over). Licensed providers (Center, Group & Family Home) use 5 distinct star tiers (Base/1-Star collapse to one rate; then 2/3/4/5-Star); license-exempt providers use Level 1 / Level 2 only.

Family Contribution (family_contribution/per_child.yaml, RFT 270 p.3 / BEM 706 p.2): a flat per-child, per-pay-period dollar amount set by the income band the program-group income falls in — $0 / $15 / $30 / $45 / $60 / $69 / $78 across the seven columns — subtracted from the provider payment. It is waived (family_contribution/star_waiver_threshold.yaml) for any income-waived child and for income-eligible children at a licensed 3-Star (Enhancing Quality) or higher provider. License-exempt providers have no Great Start to Quality rating, so their income-eligible children always pay regardless of any star rating on record (RFT 270 p.3); the waiver is gated on provider type, not the star rating alone. The summed per-child Family Contribution is capped at a per-family limit (family_contribution/family_limit.yaml): N/A / $45 / $83 / $121 / $143 / $164 / $186 across the seven bands.

Requirements Coverage

31 of 38 identified requirements are implemented; 7 are excluded by design (below).

Not Modeled

Historical Notes

The following prior-era values were identified during research but are not encoded here — they are recorded for a follow-up backdating PR:

• Income/Family-Contribution scale: the encoded RFT 270 Table 1 scale is effective 2025-09-21. A prior scale was effective 2024-09-22 (superseded by the current one). Source: RFT 270 p.3.
• Two-parent authorization rule: the encoded rule authorizes on the parent with the highest need hours, effective 2024-11-03. Before 2024-11-03 the program authorized on the parent with the fewest hours. Source: BEM 710 p.2.
• Hourly rates: the encoded rates (RFT 270 Table 2) are effective 2024-09-22 (Pay Period 420) and remain current; the block reimbursement schedule has been effective since 2022-10-09.

Files Added

changelog.d/
  mi-ccap.added.md
policyengine_us/
  parameters/gov/hhs/ccdf/
    child_care_subsidy_programs.yaml          (modified — added mi_child_care_subsidies)
  programs.yaml                                (modified — added Michigan CDC entry + CCDF coverage)
  parameters/gov/states/mi/mdhhs/ccap/
    age_group/thresholds.yaml
    authorized_hours/tiers.yaml
    block_hours/tiers.yaml
    eligibility/child_age_limit.yaml
    eligibility/disabled_child_age_limit.yaml
    eligibility/max_program_group_size.yaml
    family_contribution/per_child.yaml
    family_contribution/family_limit.yaml
    family_contribution/star_waiver_threshold.yaml
    income/countable_income/sources.yaml
    income/scale/entry_limit.yaml
    income/scale/exit_limit.yaml
    income/scale/band_thresholds/size_1.yaml ... size_10.yaml
    rates/center.yaml
    rates/family_home.yaml
    rates/exempt.yaml
    two_parent_uses_highest_hours.yaml
  variables/gov/states/mi/mdhhs/ccap/
    mi_ccap.py
    mi_child_care_subsidies.py
    mi_ccap_age_group.py
    mi_ccap_authorized_hours.py
    mi_ccap_block_payment.py
    mi_ccap_countable_income.py
    mi_ccap_enrolled.py
    mi_ccap_exempt_level.py
    mi_ccap_family_contribution.py
    mi_ccap_hourly_rate.py
    mi_ccap_program_group_size.py
    mi_ccap_provider_type.py
    mi_ccap_star_rating.py
    eligibility/mi_ccap_eligible.py
    eligibility/mi_ccap_eligible_child.py
    eligibility/mi_ccap_income_eligible.py
    eligibility/mi_ccap_income_waived.py
    eligibility/mi_ccap_activity_eligible.py
  tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/mi/mdhhs/ccap/
    integration.yaml
    mi_ccap_age_group.yaml
    mi_ccap_authorized_hours.yaml
    mi_ccap_block_payment.yaml
    mi_ccap_family_contribution.yaml
    mi_ccap_hourly_rate.yaml
    mi_ccap_program_group_size.yaml
    eligibility/mi_ccap_eligible.yaml
    eligibility/mi_ccap_eligible_child.yaml
    eligibility/mi_ccap_income_eligible.yaml
    eligibility/mi_ccap_income_waived.yaml
    eligibility/mi_ccap_activity_eligible.yaml

Test plan

• 113 tests pass (policyengine-core test policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/states/mi/mdhhs/ccap -c policyengine_us)
• make format clean
• CI passes

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