New Resource Highlights Workforce Crisis in Child Care and Early Education

This month, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley released their 2024 Early Childhood Workforce Index, which provides an overview of the policies and conditions affecting the early care and education (ECE) workforce as well as state-by-state insights. This fourth iteration of the Index emphasizes how early educators continue to struggle in poverty as programs face high turnover and difficulty recruiting and retaining staff. 

Despite growing recognition of the importance of ECE, progress on improving working conditions, wages, benefits, and access to professional development for the ECE workforce has been incremental at best. As wages rose 4.9% nationally for all occupations over the past few years, the ECE workforce trailed behind with a 4.6% increase. Additionally, in industries that ECE workers often flee to, like fast food and retail, wages rose 5.2% and 6.8% respectively. CSCCE found that overall the ECE workforce is compensated at lower rates than 97% of all professions, resulting in poverty-level wages and increased difficulty in employing people to do this challenging and important work. 

The difference in median hourly wages and participation in public safety net programs between the ECE workforce and other careers, including elementary and middle school education, demonstrates how large the gap in compensation truly is:

• ECE Workforce
  • Median Hourly Wage: $13.07 (ranging from $10.60 in Louisiana to $18.23 in DC)
  • Participation in Public Safety Net Programs: 43%
• Elementary and Middle School Teacher:
  • Median Hourly Wage: $31.80
  • Participation in Public Safety Net Programs: 19%
• All Occupations:
  • Median Hourly Wage: $22.92
  • Participation in Public Safety Net Programs: 28%

Taxpayers are spending $4.7 billion per year in public safety net expenses for early educators and their families to offset their insufficient earnings. 

Within the ECE workforce, wages vary significantly based on setting, funding stream, and age of the children served, rather than qualifications. While 30% of center-based and about 20% of home-based teaching staff hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, those who work in school-funded pre-K programs earn $20,000+ more per year than those working in centers without public funding. On top of this, those working with infants and toddlers in centers that are not school-sponsored make $8,000 less per year than those working with children ages three through five. Even in the best case scenarios, early educator wages do not meet a living wage for a single adult with no children in any state, even though many early educators are parents themselves. 

In response to these challenges, CSCCE identified five policy areas for states to consider for improving their ECE workforce: 

1. Qualifications and Educational Supports: Consistent standards and support for educators pursuing higher education.
2. Work Environment Standards: Standards to hold ECE programs accountable to provide safe and supportive work environments. 
3. Compensation and Financial Relief Strategies: Investments and strategies that align compensation with an educator’s qualifications, experience, and expertise.
4. Workforce Data: State-level data collection on size, characteristics, and conditions of the ECE workforce.
5. Public Funding: Public investment in ECE workforce and system.

One strategy highlighted in the report to support early educators in pursuing higher education and training is Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs). These programs double as a pathway for career advancement and professional development for current educators looking to progress and as an attractive alternative pathway for entry into the ECE field. Better alignment and investment into these programs could increase access to degree and credential attainment and improve educator compensation. 

A competent and stable workforce is essential to program quality. When early educators suffer, so do the children they care for. Many states used pandemic relief funds to support the workforce, but that funding has recently expired, leaving many questions about how the workforce will be impacted. Better public funding, alignment of standards, and quality initiatives are all needed to address the workforce crisis and ensure that programs can recruit and retain quality educators.