蜜桃影视

Khulood Jamil never shut the doors of her home child care in California鈥檚 Bay Area in the early days of the pandemic. Many of her parents are nurses, police officers, firefighters and grocery store employees. 鈥淭hose people cannot work from home and they need someone to watch their children,鈥� she said. Now as things have returned to some kind of normalcy there is even more demand for her program given how many others closed down permanently. 鈥淚 get a lot of calls, I have a waiting list,鈥� she said.

But she can鈥檛 enroll any more families because she can鈥檛 hire enough staff members to watch more children. 鈥淚鈥檓 full,鈥� she said.

Given the high costs of living in the Bay Area, her staff have left for other jobs 鈥渆ven if it鈥檚 not rewarding,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey need that money to put food on their table.鈥� One employee left her for work in eldercare making $26 per hour, while another went to Starbucks, where she said she would get paid $21 per hour. Jamil currently has two part-time assistants, but she really needs a full-time employee and three part-time ones. One of her current teachers is a college student only working for the summer. When we spoke in early August she knew the student would be leaving soon, but 鈥淚 cannot find anyone,鈥� she said. She鈥檚 even posted fliers at nearby stores and social service offices, reached out to churches, and paid $150 a month to post the job on Care.com, but she hasn鈥檛 gotten any calls.

People looking for work know how little she鈥檚 likely to pay, she said. 鈥淚 wish I could pay them $50 an hour, but from where? From where?鈥� She鈥檚 already taken a more than 10 percent pay cut herself to pay her assistants more鈥攖he only way she and her husband get by is off of the income from his job. 鈥淲e barely make it,鈥� she said.

The teacher shortage in K-12 education has made national headlines as school districts have turned to things like with no experience or cutting back to . But the staff shortage crisis in child care is just as acute, yet has received far less attention. There are still in child care than there were in February 2020, even as the rest of the economy has reached its pre-pandemic employment levels and more and more children are in need of care.

The dynamics are also different than in K-12 education. While there is a between what teachers earn and what people with comparable education and experience can make in other jobs, child care providers make even less than teachers. Full-time child care center employees make just $14.01 per hour on average, less than half of what kindergarten teachers make. Many providers can only afford to pay minimum wage for employees who change diapers, wipe noses and foster children鈥檚 growth in the most important phase of their development.

The heart of the problem for child care providers is that they鈥檙e on their own: While K-12 education is funded by the government, child care is almost entirely private, and providers say they can鈥檛 ask parents to shoulder the full cost of what it takes to care for young children. Even when they enroll families who get government subsidies, the subsidies pay them less than market rates.

This was true before the pandemic, but the extra exposure and work it now takes to provide child care in the health crisis coupled with the current tight labor market has brought the child care staffing shortage to crisis levels.

Jamil boasts that she runs a very high quality program from her home, accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and rated five stars. But she still can鈥檛 charge her parents the full cost of that kind of care, she said. Meanwhile, her costs are rising significantly with inflation, particularly for the food she cooks and serves to the children. 鈥淭he prices are now triple,鈥� she said. That leaves her no extra money to increase wages and benefits to attract more employees.

Jamil has run her program since 1996, but for the first time in 26 years, this year she had to tell parents one morning that she couldn鈥檛 open for two days because she didn鈥檛 have the staff. One employee called in sick and another had a death in the family, and Jamil knew she couldn鈥檛 do it by herself. She couldn鈥檛 ask someone random to come work for the day because every employee has to go through a background check and be fingerprinted. Normally she would have enough staff to cover such an emergency, but her ranks are too thin.

She bought all of the parents flowers and chocolates the following Monday as an apology, even though she knows 鈥渋t wasn鈥檛 my fault,鈥� she said. She always tells her parents months in advance about any closures. 鈥淚 was crying, because this is not me,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 like to be consistent.鈥�

Kym Ramsey got into child care as an entrepreneur, looking to marry her interest in business and her role as a mother. But even before the pandemic she saw that there is little money to be made. 鈥淢ost businesses should be making at least 10 to 20 percent profit margin,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e in child care are at 1 to 2 percent, and that is you鈥檙e making a profit. So you鈥檙e just paying the bills.鈥� She has a lot of families enrolled at her center in Pennsylvania who qualify for government subsidies, but she noted that she鈥檚 reimbursed at below market rates and less than what it costs to provide the care.

Ramsey was able to attract teachers before the pandemic by offering things like a 401(k) plan and professional development. But after she had to close her doors in the beginning of the pandemic, many employees didn鈥檛 want to return and she shrank from a staff of 26 to a staff of 16. That worked for a while as enrollment also stayed low and the government kept paying her as if she was still full. 鈥淣ow we鈥檙e trying to get staff, no one鈥檚 coming,鈥� she said. She鈥檚 down to 13 employees. One left to take a delivery job with Amazon, while the other two went to Target and a grocery store. They can make about $20 an hour in the new jobs. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 double what they were making with me,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 compete.鈥�

鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 attract anybody to come to replace them or even to add,鈥� she said. She鈥檚 offering bonuses to people she hires who stay for a certain amount of time, but people have still left before they could claim the money. She had to close a classroom for school aged children this summer and, for the first time, she couldn鈥檛 accept a group of kindergarten and first grade aged children this fall. She鈥檚 at 33 percent enrollment, compared to about 90 percent pre-pandemic, because she doesn鈥檛 have the staff. She鈥檚 only using four of her eight rooms and she has a waiting list 鈥渁 mile long,鈥� she said.

The teachers she does have are doing extra鈥攖aking temperatures, overseeing lunch, bringing kids to and from buses, answering phones. She鈥檚 taken on debt to pay her head teachers more, but she can鈥檛 pay new hires at that level. 鈥淚 am taking on debt in this sinking ship,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see a lifeline provided.鈥� She had hoped that the child care and early childhood education investments laid out in Democrat鈥檚 Build Back Better plan would pass and allow her to keep paying higher wages, but the child care portion was stripped out of the final reconciliation bill.

She doesn鈥檛 know how much longer she can keep doing it. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just financially no longer logical,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not that we don鈥檛 care about children. I love children. But we have to take care of our own families.鈥�

Benu Chabra can only afford to pay minimum wage and isn鈥檛 able to offer benefits. That makes it hard to compete with places like Starbucks, Peets Coffee and In-N-Out Burger, which are paying about $20 an hour with health insurance. 鈥淲hy would they come work for us when they can go make more money there?鈥� she said. 鈥淚 wish I could do more.鈥� Her license allows her to have 14 children in her California home, but she only has 12 because she鈥檇 need another staff member to increase enrollment. She currently has one full-time employee and one part-time one, but that鈥檚 not enough鈥攚hen she鈥檚 fully staffed she has three employees plus herself. The week before we spoke one of her employees was out sick for two days and Chabra鈥檚 husband had to pitch in.

鈥淚t would be good if the government can give us some kind of funding to keep employees,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t would be easier and I would be able to afford more.鈥�

Even those who have found a way to hire the talent they need know they鈥檙e in a precarious position and things could fall apart at any time. When Julie Clark and I spoke in March, she too was struggling to compete with the likes of Walmart, Amazon and Target to hire employees for her CAST Preschool and Childcare Center in Connecticut. 鈥淲hy would you take a job earning $14 an hour wiping noses and diapering children when you can get a job for $20 an hour putting items in a box?鈥� she said.

Last summer, just before the school year was set to begin, five teachers left because they were able to get jobs that paid better and offered better benefits. She put out help wanted ads, but when she asked people to come in for interviews they almost never showed up. It meant that she was pitching in and other teachers were doing things beyond their job descriptions, such as the art teacher overseeing a classroom. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a constant juggling of people,鈥� she said.鈥� It also meant she had some classrooms with a single teacher and a group of children, a real challenge when it comes to dealing with bathrooms, diapers and lunch time. 鈥淥ne teacher, you鈥檙e just kind of getting through the day,鈥� she said. She ended up having to hire people without any experience just to fill the gaps, many of whom she later regretting hiring and who eventually left. 鈥淚f you could walk and talk and chew gum you were hired,鈥� she said.

When we spoke again in August she had finally been able to fully staff up, and every classroom was fully enrolled. She had about four teachers who had worked for her previously who contacted her looking to return, 鈥渨hich is wild,鈥� she said. But she also had to hire some inexperienced young people again. 鈥淲ill the young people that I hired work out? I don鈥檛 know,鈥� she said.

And there鈥檚 a big catch to her current good fortune: to attract enough staff she offered higher pay, but it鈥檚 more than she can actually afford. 鈥淚 had to,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou can get a job at McDonald鈥檚 for $18 starting salary.鈥� She鈥檚 been able to cover the expense with some funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and her state government, but all of those are one-time payments. 鈥淯nless the legislature passes something again, this will last me hopefully the year and then we鈥檒l be in trouble,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 tell a person, 鈥榃ell I did offer you $16 an hour but now I have to pay you 15.鈥� Then you will lose people.鈥�

Even so, she knows she could easily still lose the people she鈥檚 fought so hard to hire. 鈥淯sually this time of year at least one teacher comes to me and says that they鈥檝e found a job somewhere else,鈥� she told me in early August. 鈥淚鈥檓 waiting for that shoe to drop.鈥�

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 蜜桃影视. Learn more here.