{"id":114261,"date":"2026-01-27T20:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T20:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/114261\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T20:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T20:51:07","slug":"child-care-workers-make-less-than-retail-salesclerks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/114261\/","title":{"rendered":"Child care workers make less than retail salesclerks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Advocates and providers say the salary for child care workers is less than a livable wage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis field doesn\u2019t pay a lot,\u201d said Katelyn Fredricks, director at Joyful Beginnings. \u201cThe reason I\u2019m here is because I absolutely love children. I want to give back because what day care teachers have done for my children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite loving her job taking care of children, when her paycheck hits her bank account, Fredricks shared that it often isn\u2019t enough to cover her expenses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do have to go without things that I need in order to provide for my family,\u201d said Fredricks.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s announcement on <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumlocalnews.com\/nys\/capital-region\/news\/2026\/01\/13\/new-york-universal-child-care\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">universal child care<\/a>, advocates say they are thrilled with the state\u2019s commitment. They, however, expressed concerns on if there will be new policies to raise the pay for child care workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to need to grow the child care workforce, and to recruit and retain the child care workforce for the long haul, we\u2019re going to need to raise wages,\u201d said Shoshana Hershkowitz, campaign manager for the Empire State Campaign for Child Care.<\/p>\n<p>The Empire State Campaign for Child Care has proposed a permanent state fund to increase child care worker compensation with a price tag of $1.2 billion for the 2026-27 state budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe median income for a child care educator in the state is anywhere between $36,000 and $38,000,\u201d said Hershkowitz. \u201cIt\u2019s not a living wage in this state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In its 2026 data book on The State of New York\u2019s Children, The Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy highlights as a comparison showing child care workers make less than half of elementary school teachers with even retail salesclerks out-earning them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can make sure there\u2019s a minimum wage for our child care workers and frankly, it needs to be high,\u201d said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care. \u201cIf the government is paying for it, we can say this is how much you need to make.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advocates and providers say the salary for child care workers is less than a livable wage. \u201cThis field&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,5304,87,6317,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-114261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-state","13":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-state-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nicole-neuman","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-swarm","19":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}