SAN ANTONIO — Child care is critical for San Antonio families, and the early education kids receive while their parents are at work can be critical for their formative years.
However, if you were to make a list of every occupation that makes fewer dollars per hour than child care workers per Texas Workforce Commission data, it would look like this:
- Fast food and counter workers.
- Bartenders who are still getting experience.
And... that's it.
According to that data, child care workers make an average of only $10.17 an hour. The United Way of San Antonio is conducting a study to show why that should change.
"It is shocking to the general public. Most people don't understand that our San Antonio is being cared for by folks that are low-wage earners, and therefore under a tremendous amount of stress," said Jason Alemán, with United Way of San Antonio. "These educators have to make those dollars stretch and make ends meet."
Alemán serves as the vice president of Ready Children at the local United Way branch. The nonprofit decided to create a project to closely study how a wage increase would help an individual child care center.
"We started to think about this idea of what would it mean to investigate those wages." Alemán said.
The United Way of San Antonio began its Early Childhood Education Wage Increase Pilot Project in partnership with UTSA and Learning Tree Academy in San Antonio. It launched in 2022 and used United Way funds to raise wages to at least $15 an hour at the Learning Tree Academy.
The nonprofit then studied the effects of higher pay on learning and child care worker retention.
The changes were dramatic, Alemán says. The Learning Tree Academy had previously seen an annual turnover rate of 116%—meaning it had to replace it staff completely (and then some) over the course of a year.
After the pay increase, Alemán said, turnover dropped from 116% to just 30%, and learning at the location improved.
"When you have teachers that stay in a position, you begin to see higher quality," he added.
Still, there would be no way that United Way could fund that wage increase across the city. Alemán said it's up to public policymakers to improve learning on a wide scale.
Workforce Solutions Alamo CEO Adrian Lopez told KENS 5 they had been seeing the same issues. Now there is proposed legislation that could help making its way through the Texas Legislature.
Senate Bill 1145 and Senate Joint Resolution 64, for instance, look to provide licensed child care providers relief from higher property taxes while – in theory – freeing up funding for better wages.
Lopez said those wages need to increase for a variety of reasons.
"The most critical time for a child to develop is ages 0 to 5. Those kids that are in child care that have curriculum and instruction attached to it actually have better results in kindergarten though 12th grade," Lopez said. "Investing into child care also offers the opportunity for Mom or Dad to go back to school to get trained or to become employed."
The United Way of San Antonio will issue a final report on its program later this month.
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