Child care wages are so low, 2 out of 5 workers in the field need public assistance to support their families

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Caring for children during 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. 

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.

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 35^th and 36^th 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.

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.