New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte has signed Senate Bill 608 into law, removing a work requirement that had previously blocked retired grandparents from accessing the state’s Child Care Scholarship Program when caring for their grandchildren. The change, reported by the New Hampshire Bulletin, addresses a straightforward gap in existing policy: grandparents who left the workforce at retirement age were being denied childcare assistance because the program required recipients to be employed, actively seeking work, in a training program, or enrolled in school.
SB 608 creates an exemption for kinship caregivers who are both retired and at federal retirement age. For those individuals, the work requirement is waived entirely. All other income-based eligibility requirements remain in place. To qualify for the scholarship, a family must fall at or below 85 percent of New Hampshire’s state median income. The scholarship then funds childcare directly through payments to licensed daycare providers and out-of-school time programs for children up to age 13, or up to age 17 for children with disabilities.
The Senate passed the bill in late January, and its path through the legislature reflected broad support for addressing the specific situation of grandparents who have stepped in as primary caregivers, often without planning to do so.
Who This Affects
The law targets a population that has grown steadily in New Hampshire and across the United States: grandparents who become the primary caregivers for their grandchildren, frequently in response to a family crisis. Parental substance use disorder, incarceration, illness, domestic violence, and death are the most common reasons children end up being raised by grandparents rather than parents. These situations often arise suddenly, without time for financial planning. A grandparent who retired on a fixed income and did not expect to be raising children again may find themselves unable to afford quality childcare, particularly if they cannot work additional hours.
Before SB 608, the structure of the Child Care Scholarship Program created a cruel irony for this group: the program was designed to support working families by subsidizing the cost of childcare while parents worked. But a retired grandparent is not a working parent. They are, by definition, not employed. The existing work requirement excluded them from assistance even when their income placed them well below the eligibility threshold in every other respect.
The fix is narrow and targeted. It does not create new categories of eligibility or restructure the broader scholarship program. It removes one specific requirement for one specific group: people who are already at federal retirement age and are already retired, who are caring for grandchildren under kinship care arrangements. The income test and all other program rules remain intact.
New Hampshire’s Childcare Landscape
The new law arrives during a legislative session that has seen significant activity around childcare policy in Concord. New Hampshire has been navigating competing pressures on its childcare system: provider shortages, wage pressures for childcare workers, affordability gaps for middle-income families, and the administrative complexity of federal matching requirements for state childcare funds.
Advocates have pointed out for years that kinship care, the informal arrangement in which relatives rather than the state assume responsibility for children who cannot safely remain with their parents, saves the state money compared to formal foster care placements. When grandparents and other relatives step in, they typically do so out of love and family obligation, but they do so at real financial cost. The state’s failure to make the scholarship accessible to retired kinship caregivers was widely viewed as a policy oversight rather than an intentional exclusion.
A separate legislative debate this session has focused on the stalled childcare workforce grant, with lawmakers pressing state health officials on a $1.2 million quality contract that was tabled earlier this year. That dispute, and the broader tensions around how New Hampshire funds childcare infrastructure, is part of the context in which SB 608 passed. The grandparents bill addresses the demand side of the equation: it helps more families access the scholarship. The workforce debates address the supply side: whether there are enough providers, paid well enough, to actually serve those families.
Ayotte has been active on family and social services legislation this session. In addition to SB 608, she has signed bills addressing welfare residency verification and other human services matters. Her approval of the welfare residency requirement earlier this year reflected a different set of priorities in the social services space, one focused on limiting state benefits to verified New Hampshire residents. The childcare scholarship legislation for grandparents operates from a different direction: it recognizes that the existing rules inadvertently excluded people the program was capable of helping.
The Federal Retirement Age Factor
The bill’s reference to “federal retirement age” is specific and consequential. Federal retirement age for Social Security purposes is currently 66 years and two months for those born in 1955, rising incrementally to 67 for those born in 1960 or later. Full retirement age for Social Security purposes is the baseline the bill uses to define who qualifies as “retired” under the new exception.
That definition matters practically because it ensures the exemption applies to a genuinely retired population, not to people who have temporarily left the workforce for other reasons. A 50-year-old grandparent who is out of work is not covered by the new exception. A 67-year-old grandparent who retired after a full working life and is now raising a grandchild full-time is exactly the person the bill is designed to help.
The income test that remains in place ensures the program’s limited funds continue to be directed toward families with genuine financial need. Families earning above 85 percent of the state median income are not eligible regardless of their caregiver’s retirement status.
What the Scholarship Provides
The New Hampshire Child Care Scholarship Program provides funds for childcare through direct payments to licensed providers. The payments go to daycare centers, family childcare homes, and out-of-school time programs rather than to families directly, which simplifies administration and ensures the funds are used for their intended purpose.
Coverage extends to children up to age 13. For children with disabilities, the age ceiling extends to 17, reflecting the longer period during which such children may need structured care and supervision outside school hours. The scholarship is not unlimited: families at different income levels receive different subsidy amounts, and families are generally expected to contribute a copayment on a sliding scale.
For a retired grandparent in New Hampshire caring for a grandchild full-time, the scholarship can mean the difference between being able to maintain a semblance of normal childcare, with the child attending a licensed program that provides education, socialization, and structure, and simply making do with no outside care at all. The latter option often means the grandparent has no time away from caregiving, no ability to manage their own health needs, and no access to community support. The former option keeps children in structured environments with other children their age, which child development research consistently associates with better outcomes.
Broader Context: Kinship Care as a Policy Priority
The interest in supporting kinship caregivers has been building across multiple states in recent years. Research on child outcomes consistently shows that children placed with relatives fare better on average than children in non-relative foster care, across measures including school performance, behavioral health, and long-term attachment to stable adult relationships. States have accordingly been looking for ways to make kinship care more financially sustainable for the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings who take on these roles.
New Hampshire’s SB 608 is a modest intervention, but it addresses a real barrier for a population that is often invisible in policy debates. The people it helps are not typically organized advocacy groups or vocal political constituencies. They are families managing a private crisis, trying to keep grandchildren out of the formal child welfare system, and finding that the systems designed to help working families did not have a place for them.
Ayotte’s signature turns that situation into law: if you are retired, at federal retirement age, and raising your grandchild in New Hampshire on a modest income, you can now access the same childcare assistance that working parents have long been able to use. The fix is targeted and financially conservative. Its effect on the families it reaches will be practical and immediate.
For background on the broader legislative session and how Ayotte has navigated competing priorities on childcare, mental health, and social services in 2026, see our coverage of the SB 498 children’s mental health bill dispute and the ongoing tensions in the childcare funding debate at the State House.
For related coverage, see our reporting on Habeas Corpus Petitions Surge in New Hampshire’s Federal Court as Immigration….
