Child care providers in California are paid less than their costs and value.
California's reimbursements to child care providers are based on what families can pay. Thus, child care providers must serve the state's neediest children with low pay instead of receiving the costs to provide care.
As Yes Magazine puts it, child care is not only undervalued in America but also invaluable. Thus, it is difficult for parents to find good, long-lasting child care services.
Child care providers are never paid enough, not through private tuition fees paid by parents or the government's public subsidies. Instead, they are paid through a melange of public programs and at rates based on years-old prices that economists describe as a "failed market."
Underpaid because underfunded
While outturns of this underfunding fall onto those families with working parents and young ones, who need to budget 13 percent of their income on child care or an average of $19,500 annually in California, a heavier burden goes to the child care workers.
In California, there are almost 138,000 teachers, daycare center directors, and small-business owners who are strained by California's shortage of funds for the child care industry. Most of them are women, specifically women of color and immigrants.
According to 2020 data by the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, small family child care providers' income in California is as low as $16,200 to $30,000 annually. Teachers and center directors earn more at a median pay of $39,500 and $54,100, respectively. However, 66 percent of these teachers, half of the center directors, and a third of family child care providers are stressed due to insufficient income to pay their bills and other expenses.
Moreover, 33 percent of family child care providers and teachers need public assistance, while 66 percent are experiencing food insecurity. These individuals also lack employment benefits.
Read Also: Child Care Sector Crisis Could Get Worse With Over Millions of Dollar of Delayed Payments
National crisis
The child care industry's under-compensation status is not just a problem in California but is already a national issue, significantly limiting the supply of child care, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
"Because we have such low wages in the field, people are not flocking to it to fill the spots that we have. We just do not have enough child care in this country for the number of children that are in need. That all has to do with the payment of the actual workers. If we paid them decently, then they'd be there," emphasized Elizabeth Pufall Jones from the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
This is so true that California is now left with fewer than half of child care spaces available for the kids who need them.
According to the California Resource and Referral Network and census estimates, in 2021, there were only 560,100 spaces in child care centers and less than 267,900 spaces in family child care homes for around 1.7 million kids under six years old in California who have working parents.
Unfortunately, this shortage prevents the state from serving more children in subsidized child care. Thus, families who cannot afford the care are having it worse.
Keisha Nzewi, director of public policy for the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, a nonprofit institution representing child care referral agencies all over the state, proclaimed her disappointment that there have never been enough subsidized or non-subsidized child care spaces ever. And she hints that this is because it is an industry that is "extremely low-paid," with owners and employees having no healthcare, retirement, or even time for a vacation.
