A living wage is a floor, not a ceiling: a comparative case study of early childhood workforce salary scales in the united states as seen through a feminist economics lens

Abstract

The early childhood workforce does some of the most critical work on the planet: caring for and educating the next generation. Not only does this work lay the foundation for lifelong learning in children, but it also occurs during a critical developmental period that shapes the relationships they form with others. Given the pivotal outcomes that rest on this work, it would seem that the field of early childhood education would be a prized profession, recognized not only with respect but also with commensurate compensation; however, this is not the case.The reality is that the early childhood workforce has served children and families, and subsequently employers and economies, since its inception, without proper respect or compensation. Decades have passed, and the early childhood workforce has pleaded its case. Movements have been launched, and organizations have been formed to dedicate the time, energy, and resources needed to shift the dominant narrative toward recognizing that early childhood education is a public good and should be regarded as essential infrastructure. To fully realize this shift, our field has taken several steps to ensure its success. These steps include acknowledging the current realities of the early childhood workforce (they are underpaid, and often do not have access to benefits like health care, sick days, retirement, and tuition reimbursement), and understanding what the early childhood education system needs to be sustainable (total funding needed to compensate, at a minimum, at a living wage with full benefits). Using true-cost fiscal modeling, experts have developed tools such as salary scales to help programs and policymakers understand how the early childhood workforce should be compensated and how much funding is required, without burdening families or programs. This dissertation, a review of salary scales across the United States, examines their focus on living wages and their design with respect to stakeholder involvement, wage determination, funding, and policy. This research also aims to synthesize the existing literature, gather the work of salary scale development from all states across the country, and look specifically at their designs, to make recommendations for the future—a future in which early childhood education is recognized as a public good and the early childhood workforce is compensated, at a minimum, with a living wage.