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I was disappointed to read Evan Ramstad’s article (”Iowa, New York offer supply-side lessons for affordable child care,” Business, Jan. 14) about challenges facing child care in Minnesota because it lacked one critical variable of the equation in this market failure: poverty level wages for the early childhood workforce.
As an early childhood educator with 15 years of experience and a master’s degree, I left teaching — a job I loved — last spring for a job that paid me nearly double what I was making in the classroom.
I’m all for innovative solutions to solving the child care crisis. But unless we address the root of the problem, these solutions won’t last. Funneling money to large corporations to open child care centers without requiring that they pay the early childhood workers a living wage will only create more empty classrooms because they won’t be able to find staff.
Access to child care is certainly an issue, but I propose the main problem is that there are no financial incentives for people to work child care jobs when they could work at Target for a better hourly wage and benefits.
Ramstad wrote, “There are risks to working on the demand side only. One is that, as more families receive state financial help, child care providers raise their prices and absorb the money themselves.” I can assure you that there are no fat cats in child care. Because some like to think of child care as a market similar to the demand for bananas rather than a public service like roads, providers can only charge what families are willing and able to pay.
Low wages for staff, or take-home pay for those providing care in their homes, are currently subsidizing child-care costs to families with no one getting what they need at the end of the day. Like what we saw during the pandemic, we need government investment that goes directly to paying for wages to help fill the gap.
