Poverty wages keep child care teachers in ‘grim financial bind,’ says new report
“California’s child care providers and teachers are earning such low wages that many need government assistance to make ends meet, and conditions are so dire that “radical reform” is needed to support them and to stabilize the entire child care system, says a new UC Berkeley study.
Among nearly 8,000 child care staff surveyed in 2020, median wages are below or near federal poverty levels, says the report from Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CCSCE). About a third reported that they are enrolled in Medi-Cal or other forms of public assistance, and a like percentage reported basic food insecurity.
The new study found that early educators — mostly women of color and immigrant women — struggle in ‘a grim financial bind’ because of California’s low public investment in the child care system.”