High Calling, Low Wages. Home-Based Early Care and Education Providers in New York City
There are an estimated 7,200 regulated home-based early care and education (ECE) providers – overwhelmingly immigrant women and women of color working out of their homes – in New York City, who have the ability to serve over 86,000 children in New York City. They provide personalized care in a mixed-age, intimate setting and often offer extended hours for families, many of them living in the outer boroughs, in Spanish-speaking communities, or reliant on State-provided vouchers to subsidize the cost of child care. The Center for New York City Affairs’ new report finds that home-based early care and education providers are also the lowest-paid workers in the ECE industry, making less than the minimum hourly wage. Not surprisingly, they are themselves heavily reliant on public assistance, and typically severely rent-burdened and housing insecure.
The extremely low income of home-based providers suggests there are problems with existing policy regarding early care and education. In addition to providing a detailed foundational socio-economic profile of these providers, this report explores that policy landscape and offers policy recommendations to sustain and support the home-based ECE workforce.