Welcome back to another year of legislative trends. This week’s legislative activity includes new and pending actions on child care subsidies, Medicaid coverage for doulas, and paid family and medical leave for state workers.

• Child Care: Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Virginia proposed new funding streams to support child care subsidies.

• Doulas: Florida and Indiana introduced bills to support the doula workforce. 

• Paid Family and Medical Leave: Virginia, Indiana, and Mississippi proposed legislation to create a statewide PFML programs, each with up to 12 weeks of leave.

Our policy analysts monitor legislative activity across these nine policy areas, with weekly updates reflecting where states are taking action.

• Indiana S.B. 198 and S.B. 186 would create a statewide PFML program of up to 12 weeks beginning in July 2026.

• Mississippi H.B. 1000 would establish a statewide PFML program providing 12 weeks of paid leave beginning in January 2029.

• New Hampshire H.B. 1781 would expand the voluntary Granite State Paid Family Leave Plan with a new publicly administered family and medical leave insurance program of up to 26 weeks beginning in January 2027.

• Virginia S.B. 2/H.B. 1207  would create a statewide PFML program of up to 12 weeks of leave, which would be fully implemented by 2029.

• Indiana S.B. 84 would increase income eligibility for child care subsidies to 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL).

• Iowa H.F. 2035 would increase reimbursement rates for child care subsidies to the 85^th percentile of the state’s 2024 market rate survey.

• Nebraska L.B. 920 would create the Child Care Aid Fund to support child care subsidies in the state, funded in part by increased taxes on cash devices from 5% to 15%.

• New Hampshire S.B. 645 would redirect a portion of the revenue from taxes on tobacco, liquor, alcoholic beverages, and slot machines to fund child care subsidies.

• Virginia H.B. 188 would establish a new 10% income tax for incomes in excess of $1 million to, in part, fund child care subsidies.

• At least five states—Arizona S.B. 1224, Indiana H.B. 1401, Oklahoma H.B. 4199, Virginia S.B.3/H.B. 18, and West Virginia H.B. 4072—have introduced legislation that would establish a child care cost-share program, in which the state, employees, and employers share the cost of child care.

• Missouri H.B. 2614, New Jersey S. 2291, and West Virginia S.B. 429 would make child care workers eligible for child care subsidies regardless of their income.

• Florida S.B. 780/H.B. 687 would create a state earned income tax credit (EITC) worth 20% of the federal credit, the ‘Working Floridians Tax Rebate’, effective in 2027.

• Missouri H.B. 2616 would make the existing nonrefundable 20% EITC fully refundable, effective tax year 2027.

• New Jersey S. 2577 would expand eligibility for the state EITC to victims of domestic abuse who are married filing separately, and S. 2198 would expand eligibility to filers with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.

• Rhode Island Governor McKee proposed a refundable child tax credit (CTC) of $325 per child in his budget during the state of the state address.

• Virginia H.B. 1074 would increase the refundable option of the state EITC from 20% to 25% of the federal credit and make it permanent. The bill would also create a one-time refundable CTC of $400 per child under 6, to families with incomes less than $100,000, effective tax years 2026-2030.

• Colorado H.B. 1044 would establish the Maternal Health Equity Improvement Fund in the State Treasury that can be used to support culturally responsive doula midwife care, among other operations.

• Florida H.B. 1043/S.B. 1456 would establish the Doula Workforce Development Support Program to support doula training programs, doula organizations, and community-based birthing services providers.

• Indiana S.B. 155 would require the development and implementation of a doula program including a doula certification, an enrollment process for doula Medicaid coverage 12 months postpartum, reimbursement rates, and how to match Medicaid recipients to a doula.

• Utah’s state plan amendment for doula Medicaid coverage was approved, with services beginning April 1, 2026. Coverage will include 8 hours of perinatal care and attendance at labor and delivery.

• West Virginia S.B. 470 would require the Bureau for Medical Services to file a state plan amendment for Medicaid coverage of doula services by October 2027. Coverage would include two prenatal and two postpartum visits reimbursed at $125 each and adjusted annually for inflation.

• Indiana S.B. 0001 would remove the 12-month eligibility period for individuals receiving coverage through the state's Medicaid expansion program (requiring renewal semiannually instead), set forth additional countable income requirements for Medicaid, and modify immigration status requirements by adding more verification steps. It would also require the Medicaid program to verify compliance with work requirements on a quarterly basis.

• Mississippi filed several bills pursuing Medicaid expansion through ACA adoption, with a few tweaks across the bills: H.B. 114 would direct the Division of Medicaid to apply for federal waivers to expand program eligibility up to 200% of the FPL; several others all focus on expansion up to 133% of the FPL with varying qualifying parameters.

• Oklahoma H.J.R. 1067 would create a ballot referendum, allowing voters to approve or reject an amendment to the state constitution that would halt coverage of the Medicaid expansion program if the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) were to fall below 90%.

• Oklahoma H.B. 3599 would require the state to seek a waiver or SPA to impose a cost-sharing requirement on Medicaid expansion enrollees. The cost-share would be $35 per service, capped at 5% of family income per quarter.

• South Dakota H.J.R. 5002 would place an amendment on the next general election ballot to repeal the state constitution’s requirement to provide expanded Medicaid.

• Utah H.B. 15 would modify the state's FMAP trigger law to maintain Medicaid expansion only if the FMAP stays at or above 85% (down from previously set limit of 90%).

• Alabama S.B. 61 would end Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility, except where federally required, and shorten certification periods to less than 4 months for households with one or more able-bodied adults without dependents, households reporting zero income, and households deemed "unstable."

• Arizona H.B. 2206 would require the state to cut its SNAP error rate to at least 3% by December 2030. It would also order annual progress reports and direct corrective plans and potential administrative funding audits if the target is not met.

• Maine L.D. 2122 would require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and run an electronic error rate tracking system to detect and correct eligibility determination errors.

• New Jersey S. 295 would permit self-attestation at SNAP certification and recertification regarding dependent care, household composition, shelter costs, resources, and citizenship status.

• Oklahoma S.B. 1310 would implement annual salary cuts for select staff of the Department of Human Services when the SNAP error rate remains above 6%, barring offsetting raises and incentivizing agency workers with a $5k bonus if the error rate improves to at least 5.75%.

• At least 10 states currently have bills pending regarding the submission of federal waivers to exclude soda, candy, or other defined purchases from SNAP eligibility. The states include Alabama, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming.

• Alabama S.B. 171 would raise the SMW to $10.00 per hour (up from $7.25) beginning January 1, 2027, but exempts small businesses (employers with 50 or fewer employees) from complying with this new minimum wage requirement. 
• Arizona lawmakers introduced several bills to raise the SMW to $18.00 per hour (up from $15.15) beginning January 1, 2027. 
• Hawaii H.B. 1533 would repeal Hawaii’s planned increase of the minimum wage from $16.00 to $18.00 per hour and the tipped employee credit increase from $1.25 to $1.50 per hour that is set to take effect on January 1, 2028. 
• Mississippi lawmakers introduced several bills which would raise the SMW with initial increases ranging from $10.00 to $15.00 per hour (up from $7.25).
• Oklahoma lawmakers introduced two bills to raise the SMW beginning November 1, 2026: S.B. 1268 would increase the minimum wage to $13.00 per hour (up from $7.25) with $0.50 annual increases over five years, while H.B. 3844 would increase the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.
• Virginia H.B. 1 and S.B. 1 would gradually increase the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour (up from $12.77) by January 1, 2028, with annual cost-of-living adjustments beginning in 2029. 

• New Jersey 1797 would expand the state's EI system from serving eligible children from birth to age 2 to serving eligible children from birth to age 5. It also directs the Department of Health to pursue any State Plan Amendments or waivers necessary to procure federal funding through IDEA Part C.

• Virginia B. 205 would direct the implementation of the federal IDEA Part C extension option so children age 5 or younger can continue receiving EI services.