The median wage of the ECE workforce.  
Link to Definition Source: 2021: Early Childhood Workforce Index 2020, State of Michigan, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley (https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2020/states/michigan/ ) 

2020: Early Childhood Workforce Index 2020, State of Michigan, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley (https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2020/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/02/Early-Childhood-Workforce-Index-2020.pdf).

2019: Early Childhood Workforce Index 2016, State of Michigan, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley (https://cscce.berkeley.edu/index-2016-state-profiles/). This Index is published every two years.

In Michigan, 66 percent of children live in households where all available parents are currently working, and 26 percent of all Michigan children are part of low-income families. The cost of high-quality child care is out of reach for many working families, including those who earn middle-class wages. At the same time, large swaths of early childhood educators — even those with college degrees — earn unlivable wages.

While median wages for both early childhood and K-3 educators have increased over the past four years, median wages for early childhood educators who are often held to the same rigorous standards and requirements are dramatically lower than K-3 wages and have not increased at a comparable pace to K-3 funding increases. Moreover, early childhood educators are far less likely to have access to benefits through their employer than K-3 educators. According to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, “49% of Michigan’s child care worker families’ participation in one or more public income support programs,” meaning child care wages are so low that 49% of the workforce income-qualifies for public benefits.

Despite these challenges, Imperative #3 has hope for the future. Action teams led by diverse leaders from across Detroit are working on compensation and financial relief strategies, including working with collaborative partners to influence federal, state, and local policies. Among the adaptable solutions Michigan is pursuing that have worked in other cities and states, Hope Starts Here working with leaders inside state government on cost modeling to quantify the true cost of adequately funding high-quality permanent early care and education, strengthening advocacy efforts to help make temporary policy changes in response to COVID-19 permanent and helping to ensure a strong safety net for childcare providers- which includes achieving wage parity between K-3 educators and early care and education workers within the next 10 years.

The lack of adequate compensation for the early childhood education sector has been an issue for many years. There must be wage (or salary) parity comparable to what Kindergarten teachers make. The wage issue is not Detroit-specific but visible in the state of Michigan and across the nation. Additionally, there are pay disparities across different early childhood settings and providers of different races and ethnicities, and also race-centric aspects. For instance, in 2019 a study found Black early childhood educators being paid almost a dollar less per hour than their counterparts.

Source: https://natlheadstart.medium.com/seeking-equity-in-early-childhood-education-107a5cb0666f

Wage Parity Model-Discussion

https://brooklynreporter.com/2019/11/pay-parity-is-now-a-reality-for-cbo-pre-k-teachers/

https://childcenterny.org/salary-parity-explained/

http://www.centernyc.org/the-path-to-salary-parity-in-early-childhood-education

QUESTION

What worked?

Compensation Fact Sheet- Discussion

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-troubling-pay-gap-early-childhood-teachers

Quality care for children

https://www.qualitycareforchildren.org/ece-wages

Why we aren’t paying childhood educators what they are worth?

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-02-14-why-aren-t-we-paying-early-childhood-educators-what-they-re-worth