Childcare workers earn $13.42/hour — less than fast food workers — so providers cannot hire enough staff to fill the slots they are licensed for

The median hourly wage for childcare workers in the United States is $13.42, producing an annual income of roughly $27,920. This is lower than the median wage for fast food workers and retail employees, whose wages rose 5.2% and 6.8% respectively in recent years while childcare wages grew only 4.6%. Childcare workers are compensated at lower rates than 97% of all professions in the U.S. economy. Thirteen percent of early educators live below the federal poverty line — 5.7 times the rate of elementary school teachers — and 43% of early educator families rely on public safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps to survive. The direct consequence is not just high turnover (which damages care quality and child development outcomes) but a hard capacity constraint: providers who have physical space and licensing for 80 children can only serve 50 because they cannot hire enough staff to meet state-mandated ratios. In Minnesota, a 2024 survey found over 700 open teaching positions at childcare centers, resulting in more than 2,000 childcare slots sitting empty statewide — not because of lack of demand, not because of lack of facilities, but because there are literally not enough humans willing to do the job at the wages offered. Parents see a center with a 'WAITLIST FULL' sign and assume the building is at capacity. Often, half the classrooms are dark because there is no one to staff them. This persists because childcare is trapped in a cost disease that has no private-market solution. Parents already pay more for childcare than for in-state college tuition in 38 states. Providers cannot raise prices further without losing families. They cannot cut wages further without losing all remaining staff to Target and McDonald's. And taxpayers spend $4.7 billion per year subsidizing early educators' families through safety net programs — essentially paying twice (once for inadequate childcare wages, once for the welfare costs created by those inadequate wages) while getting neither good wages for workers nor sufficient slots for children.