Child Care Staff Compensation

The difficulty of recruiting and retaining skilled child care workers is one of the major problems inhibiting the availability and quality of child care. Child care centers throughout the state have had difficulty recruiting and retaining staff. The quality of a child care program is directly related to the quality of its staff. Poor compensation of child care professionals has forced many talented care givers out of the field. Nationally as well as in Maryland, the turnover rate of child care providers in centers is close to 30 percent. This conflicts with the goal of providing continuity of care givers for young children, which has been shown to foster healthy development.

Child care providers are among the poorest paid employees in the labor force. A work day can begin at 6:00 a.m. and end at 7:00 p.m. According to a survey conducted by Maryland Committee for Children in 1990-91, the average salary for a child care director was $19,094; senior teachers earned $13,229; aides earned $10,442; and the net income of family child care providers averaged $7,120. Based on Maryland Committee for Children's 2007 Maryland Child Care Demographics Report, the annual wage rate information for child care providers is as follows:

• Family Child Care Provider $27,529
  
• Child Care Center Director $32,034
  
• Center Senior Staff/Teacher $21,927
  
• Center Aide $15,761

There is an enormous discrepancy between what a child care provider earns for a 12-month year and the $54,333 that a full-time public elementary teacher earns for a ten-month year.

Most child care employees also do not receive the benefits available in other occupations. In Maryland, health benefits were not provided by 55% of the centers that were surveyed in 1990-91; over 80% did not offer retirement benefits; 36% did not have paid sick leave; and 27% did not offer paid vacation. Even fewer family child care providers had adequate benefits. Less than 3% were able to pay for health insurance through their business and thirty percent had no insurance through their business or their spouse. Seventy-six percent of the family child care providers surveyed were not paid when they were sick; 29% had no paid legal holidays; and 73% were not paid for vacation.

In 1990, the Public Policy Committee established a task force to explore public policy options to increase the salaries of child care workers. The Compensation Subcommittee, formerly the Salaries Task Force, completed a random sample survey of family and center-based providers, published a position paper entitled Shortchanging our Children: The Inadequate Compensation of Child Care Professionals in Maryland, and developed a workshop to help providers talk about the cost of quality care. In 1994, the General Assembly approved legislation to establish a statewide task force to address child care provider compensation issues.

In 1995, upon the urging of MCC and the Compensation Subcommittee, the Task Force, including representatives from MCC and the Maryland Child Care Resource Network, finally began its work and summarized its recommendations in an October 1996 report.

In 1997, MCC received funding from the quality set aside of the Child Care and Development Fund to conduct an in-depth study of child care compensation in Maryland. In 1998, MCC, in collaboration with the University of Maryland Baltimore County Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, conducted a survey of randomly selected family child care providers and center-based staff. The results of the study were published in the November 1998 document, Fifty Cents on a Dollar: Child Care Compensation in Maryland. The findings re-affirmed the inadequacy of child care staff compensation. The average yearly income of family child care providers was found to be $15,759 per year or $6.73 per hour, with half of these providers earning less than $12,720 per year. Three quarters were found to work more than 48 hours in an average week.

For center staff, the average hourly wage for directors of child care centers was found to be $11.62 per hour ($24,170 annually); for senior staff, $8.43 ($17,534 annually); and for aides, $6.26 ($13,021 annually). The survey indicated that 60% of full-time center staff have health insurance available to them through their employer. Just over 80% of full-time center directors have paid sick days, in contrast to 58% of full-time aides. About one-third of center staff indicated that they are likely to, very likely to, or definitely will seek a new job within the next six months. Three-quarters of these plan to leave the child care field.

Recognizing that current Provider Subsidy Payment Rates are well below prevailing provider market rates, effective August 1, 1997, emergency regulations issued by DHR increased provider payment rates to the full 75th percentile of current market rates. However, Subsidy reimbursement rates have continued to lag behind current market rates. (See the “Purchase of Care” section below.)

Compensation Subcommittee members have been joined by members of the DC Metro Worthy Wage Network as efforts have been increased to establish statewide participation in Worthy Wage Day activities. The expanded Subcommittee made staff turnover and compensation issues the central focus of MCC's Child Care Day in Annapolis in both 2001 and 2002.

Education of elected officials, child care providers, parents, and the general public on the issue of compensation continues, as does the exploration of possible initiatives that could be used to raise the salaries of child care professionals in Maryland.

Position

MCC should continue to educate providers, parents, policy makers, and the public, as well as work to promote federal and state initiatives to improve the compensation of child care professionals. Additionally, MCC should support the programmatic recommendations linking compensation to education and experience.

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