Early childhood educators are integral to children’s development, families’ participation in the workforce, and communities’ strength, and Black and Latina women disproportionately take on this vital, yet underpaid, caregiving work.
This is due in part to structural racism in the US early education workforce. Discriminatory policies, unequal access to educational attainment, expensive and time-consuming credential requirements for higher-paying jobs, the devaluation of caregiving labor, and cultural norms expecting women of color to perform care work have created racial disparities in compensation for early childhood educators. This is true both within the early education workforce (PDF) and compared with other job sectors.
To address racial disparities and improve the recruitment, retention, and well-being of early childhood educators, DC, Virginia, Maine, and San Francisco have implemented wage supplements. A new Urban report on DC’s wage supplement initiative—and a growing body of research—documents these initiatives’ benefits for early childhood educators, their employers, and the children they work with.
But how wage supplements address racial inequities within the early education sector isn’t well understood. We shed light on this question by analyzing survey data from more than 1,200 early educators working in licensed child care facilities in DC in 2023 who were eligible for wage supplements through DC’s novel Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund. Our findings hold valuable insights for policymakers and advocates looking to replicate similar initiatives and bolster the early education workforce.
What is the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund?
According to administrative records, DC’s early education workforce was 57 percent Black, 29 percent Latinx, 17 percent white, and 16 percent multiple races or another race in 2023. When we surveyed early educators in DC, we found that, on average, white early educators were more likely to have greater educational attainment, to be in higher-paying roles (e.g., lead teachers or center directors), and to earn more than their Black and Latinx counterparts. White educators were paid more even in the same roles with the same educational attainment.
According to the US Census Bureau, this workforce is also underpaid compared with other occupations that require similar skills and credentials but employ more white workers. Annual average wages for all full- and part-time child care workers in DC with a bachelor’s degree were $23,776, compared with $54,483 for all elementary and middle school teachers in DC with the same education.
Child care employers often struggle to pay wages commensurate with staff qualifications because the child care system, though funded partly with public dollars, relies heavily on payments from parents. The Pay Equity Fund aims to help fill the gap.
Implemented by the DC Office of State Superintendent of Education, the fund provided early educators supplemental payments totaling $14,000 per year for full-time lead teachers, $10,000 for full-time assistant teachers, and half these amounts for part-time teachers in fiscal years 2022 and 2023. In fiscal year 2024, funds are being distributed through child care employers to increase employee pay following a minimum salary schedule.
This helped increase early educators’ overall compensation to be closer to that of public K–12 educators in DC and recognized (PDF) the historic undervaluing of early educators’ work. Policymakers complemented the fund with policies that exempted the fund payments from eligibility calculations for public benefits in DC and offered free and low-cost health care.
Wage supplements improve economic well-being on the whole, but effects differ by race
Our findings suggest the Pay Equity Fund helped improve financial well-being and security for most educators. However, the benefits differed based on educators’ races and ethnicities. Among those who received at least one payment, Black and Latinx educators were significantly more likely than white educators to say that the fund helped them pay for housing, utilities, bills, debts, emergency costs, and child care materials.
Black and Latinx educators also reported that the fund helped alleviate financial stress so they could focus on providing quality care. Latinx educators, in particular, said the fund increased their intentions to stay in early education. These outcomes benefit children in DC, 60 percent of whom are a race or ethnicity other than white or white alone. However, Latinx educators were significantly less likely than others to say that, because of the Pay Equity Fund, they are paid fairly for the credentials required of their job.
The fund’s especially strong positive effects for Black and Latinx educators are partially attributable to their lower starting compensation levels relative to white educators. Wage supplements go further—and can mean the difference between economic insecurity and economic well-being—for those who have the least because of structural racism.
Applying insights and recommendations from the Pay Equity Fund across the US
Expanding wage supplement initiatives to more communities would improve financial well-being for more early childhood educators. DC’s Pay Equity Fund offers four insights advocates and policymakers can use to inform similar policies:
- Conduct community outreach through trusted partners and work with translation services to make materials accessible to different groups. In DC, engaging community partners helped the diverse population navigate the fund application and contributed to high take-up rates.
- Continue to help early educators receive and maintain public benefits. With some public programs, even small earnings increases can trigger a reduction in or elimination of benefits, which can have disastrous implications for a person’s or household’s finances. Allowing educators to voluntarily opt-in to wage supplements and exempting payments from eligibility determinations can help people access and retain benefits and avoid exacerbating financial insecurity.
- Pursue complementary policy solutions that address the root causes of structural racism and inequality, such as funding for continued education and debt relief. DC offers the DC Leading Educators toward Advanced Degrees scholarship, which supports early educators pursuing postsecondary degrees.
- Conduct additional research on wage supplements with a racial equity lens to identify persistent disparities and unintended consequences that result from structural racism. This can include comparing strategies for reducing inequities through wage supplements that use progressive, tiered, or flat-rate payment structures and comparing payments distributed through employers versus those made directly to educators.
These steps are a starting point for ensuring early care and education providers are properly compensated and valued, helping diverse educators stay in the profession, and providing all young children with access to a high-quality education.
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