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2 out of 5 child care
teachers make so little
they need public
assistance to support their
families
By Jackie Mader, The Hechinger Report
Posted on November 5, 2024
BBERNARD/SHUTTERSTOCK
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This story was produced by The Hechinger
Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet
focused on education.
Caring for children in their first few years is a
complex and critical job: A child’s brain develops
more in the first five years than at any other point
in life. Yet in America, individuals engaged in this
crucial role are paid less than animal caretakers
and dressing room attendants.
That’s a major finding of one of two new reports
on the dismal treatment of child care workers.
Together, the reports offer a distressing picture of
how child care staff are faring economically,
including the troubling changes low wages have
caused to the workforce.
[Related: America doesn’t know how to talk about
child care]
Early childhood workers nationally earn a
median wage of $13.07 per hour, resulting in
poverty-level earnings for 13 percent of such
educators, according to the first report, the Early
Childhood Workforce Index 2024. Released earlier
this month by the Center for the Study of Child
Care Employment at the University of California,
Berkeley, the annual report also found:
43 percent of families of early educators rely
on public assistance like food stamps and
Medicaid.
Pay inequity exists within these low wages:
Black early childhood educators earn about
$8,000 less per year than their white peers.
The same pay gap exists between early
educators who work with infants and toddlers
and those who work with preschoolers, who
have more opportunities to work in school
districts that pay higher wages.
Wages for early educators are rising more
slowly than wages in other industries, including
fast food and retail.
In part due to these conditions, the industry is
losing some of its highest-educated workers,
according to a second new report, by Chris M.
Herbst, a professor at Arizona State University’s
School of Public Affairs. That study compares the
pay of child care workers with that of workers in
other lower-income professions, including cooks
and retail workers; it finds child care workers are
the tenth lowest-paid occupation out of around
750 in the economy. The report also looks at the
‘relative quality’ of child care staff, as defined by
math and literacy scores and education level.
Higher-educated workers, Herbst suggests, are
being siphoned off by higher-paying jobs.
[Related: After years of silent sacrifices and
unseen struggles, Black women are still holding
up the child care industry]
That’s led to a “bit of a death spiral” in terms of
how child care work is perceived, and contributes
to the persistent low wages, he said in an
interview. Some additional findings from Herbst’s
study:
Higher-educated women increasingly find
employment in the child care industry to be
less attractive. The share of workers in the
child care industry with a bachelor’s degree
barely budged over the past few decades,
increasing by only 0.3 percent. In contrast, the
share of those in the industry who have 12
years of schooling but no high school degree,
quadrupled.
Median numeracy and literacy scores for
female child care workers (who are the
majority of the industry staff) fall at the 35th
and 36th percentiles respectively, compared to
all female workers. Improving these scores is
important, Herbst says, considering the
importance of education in the early years,
when children experience rapid brain
development.
This doesn’t mean child care staff with lower
education levels can’t be good early educators.
Patience, communication skills and a
commitment to working with young children also
matter greatly, Herbst writes. However, higher
education levels may mean staff have a stronger
background not only in English and math but
also in topics like behavior modification and
special education, which are sometimes left out of
certification programs for child care teachers.
You can read Herbst’s full report here, and the
2024 workforce index here.
***
Jackie Mader covers early childhood education
and writes the early ed newsletter. In her ten
years at Hechinger, she has covered a range of
topics including teacher preparation, special
education and rural schools. She previously
worked as a special education teacher in
Charlotte, North Carolina, and trained new
teachers in Mississippi. Her work has appeared in
The New York Times, The Atlantic, USA TODAY,
TIME and NBC News and has won several
awards.
This story about child care wages was produced
by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit,
independent news organization focused on
inequality and innovation in education. Sign up
for the Hechinger newsletter.
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RELATED TAGS: CHILD CARE, CHILD CARE PAY,
CHILD CARE PROFESSIONALS, CHILD CARE
TEACHERS, CHILD CARE WAGES, CHILD CARE
WORKFORCE, CHILD WELFARE AND FOSTER CARE,
EARLY CARE, EARLY CHILDHOOD, EARLY
CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT, EARLY CHILDHOOD
EDUCATION, EDUCATION AND TRAINING, FEATURE
STORY, LIVING WAGE
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