According to a new report, produced jointly by the city council and the Day Care Council of New York (DCCNY), community-based early childhood educators are paid less than teachers at school-based programs. It’s a concerning trend considering that the industry predominantly employs women of color to care for the city’s children.
“We stand united behind the majority-women of color who provide crucial care to our children during their formative years,” said Kevin Riley, councilmember and co-chair of the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus (BLAC). “To ensure continuity in care, community-based organization (CBO) childcare workers must receive equitable, competitive wages on par with their DOE counterparts. We expect all parties to engage in good-faith contract negotiations.”
Firstly, there’s a difference in funding between childcare centers, home-based programs, and the Department of Education (DOE’s) 3-K/pre-K childcare workers. Childcare centers tend to be much larger and home-based programs are smaller entities. Both are publicly funded and usually more affordable for working-class families. Wages for their staff are primarily funded and set by city contracts.
Gregory Brender, the chief policy and innovation officer for the Day Care Council of New York, worked on the pay parity report. The report found that a “certified teacher with a bachelor’s degree will lose more than $690,000 over the course of a 25-year career by working in a CBO instead of a public school.” The pay disparities often lead to high turnover and operational challenges for childcare centers, he said.
“A lot of what’s important in early childhood is the bond that young children have with caretakers and the adults in their lives, so having people change frequently really affects the quality of care,” said Brender.
He added that the low pay in this specific field is likely because of long-standing discrimination of caretaking being viewed as “women’s work.”
In 2019, the city agreed to raise the salary floor for certified teachers but it did not include increases for childcare education program staff. They also omitted teachers of preschool special education classes entirely—leaving them paid even less than 3-K/pre-K general education teachers, said Advocates for Children of New York. Once the pandemic hit in 2020, emergency childcare was in high demand. Another DCCNY report said the city opened emergency child care programs (ECCs) located in CBOs and were dedicated to solely serving children of essential workers that were under the age of 5. Since then, New York state and federal partners have given unprecedented attention and funding to childcare.
In July 2023, Mayor Eric Adams put forth a plan to support working families with allocations for child care in the city budget, which childcare providers said should have been used to address the pay gap as well.
Shanita Bowen, chief operating officer at ECE On The Move, is a Bronx native who used to run a home-based childcare program near the Grand Concourse for 16 years. She loved caring and working with kids but often found herself struggling to make ends meet until she got married and had an additional income helping her maintain the business. She was most dismayed that she had to scale back on educational programming and trips for the children often due to costs. She received about $4 to $6 an hour per child, depending on their age and attendance, from those who were qualified from the state to receive childcare subsidies.
“Family childcare is a small business,” said Bowen. “You start to see that one, two, three children, that’s not enough to pay the rent, not enough to feed the children, buy the crayons consistently, not enough to run the program.”
Many of her fellow childcare educators and assistants were also on Medicare, SNAP benefits, and/or public assistance because they couldn’t afford the cost of living with just their wages. Some providers can’t even afford payroll taxes for employees. She said that they didn’t really tell parents and families about these financial troubles. “We never made enough money,” said Bowen. “We don’t share that because we don’t want them to think that we’re the poor provider taking care of their children.”
To achieve pay parity for childcare centers, Brender said they are advocating for a new agreement with the city that factors longevity into pay structure, per diem rates for summer work, and $25 hourly minimum wage for all childcare support staff.
Bowen is for universal child care statewide and higher wages for early childcare educators and assistants.
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.