INDIANAPOLIS — 80% of Indiana’s early childhood educators don’t make enough to sustain themselves, according to a new report released during Tuesday’s Early Learning Advisory Committee (ELAC) meeting.
That report, released by the group "Talent First," showed more than 38,000 early learning educators in Indiana earn below the state’s self-sufficiency standard for a single adult, and placed the median wages for Indiana’s early childhood educators within the bottom 10% of all occupations.
”It's sad because early learning supports the entire workforce,” Jacqueline Strong, executive director for Little Duckling Early Learning Christian Academy, said.
According to ELAC, 2,400 childcare jobs in Indiana go unfilled each year. For Strong, dramatic post-pandemic changes to Indiana’s childcare landscape have contributed to the constant staffing struggles.
“What we’ve come to understand is that one person cannot manage ten students when you have four students that may have a delay, or you have four students that have behaviors,” Strong said.
A separate survey from the group "Child Trends" - also released during Tuesday’s ELAC meeting - showed half of Indiana administrators surveyed said they struggled to find qualified applicants this summer.
“A lot of early childhood educators are finding roles in other opportunities and other organizations with different salary and compensation,” Sara Amadon, senior research scientist with "Child Trends," said.
To increase capacity, the "Talent First" report recommended providing more Indiana childcare workers with zero-cost childcare for their own kids but acknowledged that would need state funding to work.
”It's really going to be hard to move the needle without any sort of public investment from the state level from the federal level, that the market is just fundamentally broken,” Amadon said.