Four years ago this week, the federal government passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to address the continued impact of COVID-19. The $39 billion investment to support early care and education programs provided a lifeline to providers and educators who were struggling just to survive. The combination of higher costs to meet safety protocols and lower revenue from fewer children enrolled had caused many programs to close and the loss of 166,000 jobs in the first eight months of the pandemic.
Like many states, Maine recognized the role low wages play in driving high turnover rates in the child care system and used some of these funds to increase compensation for early educators. Since 2021, the state’s salary supplement initiative has provided monthly stipends of $240-$540 to educators working in licensed home- or center-based care, based on education and experience, making it one of the nation’s leaders in its support of early educators.
As of June 2024, Maine was one of only twelve states that had been identified as making significant state investments to fill the gaps left in child care funding when federal dollars from ARPA expired. Just last year, Governor Mills and the state’s legislature reaffirmed their commitment to early educators by increasing state funding for the program from $12 million to $30 million. Additionally, Maine began piloting the Child Care Employment Award in July 2024, which helps employees of child care programs afford care for their own children. A similar approach in Kentucky has shown promise in recruiting and retaining employees.
Youth and Family Outreach director Camelia Babson-Haley in Portland, Maine said her child care facility has been fully staffed for four months – a break from constant staff turnover since the pandemic. “Part of the reason we’re beginning to stabilize is because of those wage supplements,” she told the Portland Press Herald.
Yet last month, Governor Mills announced a series of proposed cuts, including severely reducing funding for the salary supplement and cutting all funding for the child care pilot to meet the state’s current fiscal challenges. Heather Marden, co-executive director of the Maine Association for the Education of Young Children, estimates the cuts will impact 7,700 educators, who will see an average $4,000 loss over the next two years. Educators showed up in full force at a public hearing to share what the supplements mean to them and the impact that cutting program funding would have.
“Reliable, affordable child care is not a luxury — it’s a fundamental building block for a thriving workforce. The educators who provide child care are the unsung heroes of the economy,” Morgan Hart Tolin, a co-executive director of the Maine Association for the Education of Young Children, testified to the legislature. “But right now, we are dangerously close to losing more of those educators.”
A similar story unfolded in Washington, D.C. when Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed 2025 budget eliminated the Pay Equity Fund, an initiative that increased early educators’ wages to be at parity with K-12 educators. After an uproar from educators and community members, the city council restored partial funding for the program.
Like Maine, D.C. was considering cutting the Pay Equity Fund in response to a budget gap. We know that states are facing real budget challenges, but the data shows that investing in early educator compensation is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. A recent study by Mathematica found what many educators already knew: the Pay Equity Fund was making a real difference in the lives of educators, families, and communities. While the Pay Equity Fund was a significant investment, the study found a 23 percent return on that investment. This included:
- More than $8 million in benefits to educators, who saw reduced absenteeism, increased work experience, and other benefits;
- Nearly $13 million in benefits to child care programs in reduced recruitment costs; and
- Nearly $46 million in benefits to families, who saw both increased access to care and increased quality of care.
While decreasing investments in the workforce may reduce a state’s budget in the short term, it has real long-term costs for educators and families. For too long, early educators have been asked to essentially subsidize the cost of care with their low wages. Programs like Maine’s are the first step to recognizing and properly valuing the education and experience of this workforce.
After early educators made their voices heard last week, Maine’s legislative Health and Human Services Committee rejected the governor’s proposed cuts. Now it’s up to the appropriations committee. We urge them to listen to the voices of educators and families and continue to make this wise investment in early educator compensation.
CSCCE thanks the Alliance for Early Success and the Heising-Simons Foundation for their generous support of this work.