Nation's Childcare Workers Earn Meager Wages

By Dr. Marciene Mattleman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A new report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, follows-up a report of 1989 and finds that childcare workers have had no increase in real earnings.

Childcare workers earn less than adults who work with animals and those in fast-food settings yet work full time, earn degrees and seldom find their earnings aligned with their qualifications.

Over the last 17 years, the share of Head Start teachers with an associate or bachelor's degree has increased by 61 percent, and the share of assistant teachers with a degree has increased by 24 percent, yet there is new evidence examining economic insecurity and use of public benefits among this predominantly female, ethnically diverse workforce.

State and national efforts to improve early childhood teaching jobs are examined and recommendations are made at reinvigorating a national conversation about the status and working conditions of the more than two million teaching staff who work in our nation's early-care and -education settings caring for children at a critical time of their growth.