Gov. Ned Lamont held a news conference on Tuesday to highlight the state’s allocation of $70 million in wage support for employees of child care programs.
Full-time employees in these programs will receive a $1,000 bonus and part-time employees will receive $400. The payment will support 3,400 programs providing child care services, composed of more than 30,000 employees, and the program will distribute $30 million in wage supports for the remainder of 2022 while the remainder will be paid out in the new year.
“It’s about the kids, but it’s also about mom and dad,” Lamont said about the necessity for the child care programs. “There was a little hesitancy after Covid, some people didn’t think they could afford to go back to work because day care was so expensive, or they couldn’t find a spot for their toddlers,” he said.
Beth Bye, the Connecticut Commissioner for the Office of Early Childhood, joined Lamont at the news conference to characterize the money as both a reward for the hard work of underpaid and underappreciated professionals who went above and beyond the call of duty as truly essential workers, and also a necessary component of building a strong future for the state.
“Over the past few years, we’ve made the largest increase in child care investment in the history of our state,” she said.
The Workforce Pipeline program, which provides a full wage for those undertaking training in order to staff the nurseries, daycares and preschools that the state relies upon, also drew praise from Bye. She touted an advertising campaign including billboards and $4 million in funds for schools and colleges across the state to bolster their childhood care programs to ensure that these key roles remain filled.
Additional retention bonuses and support for meeting goals set by the state are planned. These remain necessary as demand for child care has far outpaced the capacity of many programs and many people chose to retire or leave the industry throughout the pandemic.
Bye noted that Connecticut has on net lost 1.5% of its child care capacity, a number “we’re not happy about,” although she acknowledged it was better than much of the country ”“ the national average was a 9% decline, while Oregon led the states with a 15% reduction.
The problem, according to Bye, largely comes from chronic low wages in a difficult profession.
“It has a lot to do with compensation,” she said. “You’ll see signs where Target is saying they are paying $22 an hour. Well, child care center programs can’t support $22 an hour with an assistant teacher because parents can only pay so much, despite the high value of the work and the critical nature.”
