These tools and publications inform strategies to increase wages and benefits, support family child care providers, and increase fiscal stability in early care and education programs. Explore examples of how states and local programs have implemented these strategies.
Increasing Wages and Benefits
Workforce Wednesday: Strategies to Support Equitable Compensation, Wages, and Benefits for the ECE Workforce
This webinar provides examples of innovations and resources to address early care and education (ECE) workforce compensation issues.
Competitive Bonuses for the Head Start Workforce: ACF-IM-HS-22-04
This information memorandum and video from the Office of Head Start encourages all Head Start programs to use the American Rescue Plan Act, base grant operations, and other coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) relief funds to offer competitive financial incentives to staff. Incentives such as retention and hiring bonuses can help stabilize and support their workforce in the near term.
Increasing Workforce Compensation Implementation Guide: Immediate Relief for the Workforce
This resource can help Lead Agencies rebuild their early childhood and school-age care workforce through American Rescue Plan Act funding.
Improving Child Care Compensation Backgrounder 2021
The Improving Child Care Compensation Backgrounder 2021 provides tactical information to help leaders better understand the policy levers available to support early educator compensation, which is so critical right now when we can finally address this critical problem. In this update, we’ve included examples of states and counties implementing in different ways the eight strategies covered in the backgrounder, which are: compensation scales and standards, wage stipends and bonus payments, individual tax credits for child care educators, ARPA child care stabilization sub-grants, child care assistance, benefits, apprenticeships, and pre-K parity for child care.
A Look at Salary/Wage Scales for the Early Childhood Educator Workforce (PDF)
A Look at Salary/Wage Scales for the Early Childhood Educator Workforce is intended to provide states and cities with the knowledge to begin developing early childhood workforce salary scales. This work is timely and necessary as the early childhood field, businesses, communities, states and the nation face the stark realities of our growing child care crisis.
A Guide for Conducting a Wage and Fringe Benefits Comparability Survey
Learn how to conduct a comparability survey that analyzes employee compensation across similar organizations that offer parallel services so you can ensure your staff receive fair and comparable wage based upon industry standard for their position.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program
Learn about federal programs that could help make student loans easier to pay back and could lead towards loan forgiveness. The Department of Education recently announced a set of actions to restore the promise of PSLF, including a time-limited waiver so that student borrowers can count payments from all federal loan programs or repayment plans toward forgiveness. Applications for waiver are due by October 22, 2022. Also, explore student loan forgiveness for teachers .
Supporting Family Child Care Providers
What Is the Best Business Structure for a Family Child Care Provider?
This webinar explores four different types of business structures and five factors to consider before family child care providers choose the best structure for themselves.
How Do Family Child Care Providers Pay Themselves?
Watch this webinar to understand the ways in which providers earn money from a variety of sources and the differences between a sole proprietor and a corporation. Learn about tax consequences and the best ways to manage bank accounts, and explore the impact of business profits on Social Security benefits.
Increasing Fiscal Stability
Strategies to Increase Base Payment Rates
This guide addresses hurdles to increasing payment rates and offers strategies for overcoming concerns and increasing payment rates.
Innovative Strategies to Support Use of Contracts in Child Care Systems
This implementation guide focuses on the use of contracts to stabilize child care and support overall improvements to the child care system. Potential challenges to using contracts are identified, and strategies and resources are offered to overcome concerns.
Provider Cost of Quality Calculator Tool
This tool can help policymakers, policy analysts, budget analysts, providers, and other stakeholders estimate the annual cost and revenue for full-time child care provided through child care homes or centers at different quality levels.