This summary documents the benefits of the District of Columbia’s wage enhancement program for early childhood educators, the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, to educator retention in child care centers, especially centers accepting child care subsidies. The summary is one in a series that documents implementation findings from the initiative in fiscal year 2024.

Why This Matters

Early childhood educators receive low wages, which negatively impacts centers’ ability to recruit and retain staff and to provide high-quality services for families and children. Offering higher pay may address staffing challenges, but many centers struggle to offer competitive pay without also raising tuition for families and compromising their access to care. Public investments in early educators’ compensation give centers a lever for offering higher pay and have the potential to reduce turnover and stabilize staffing.

The District of Columbia began enhancing the wages of early childhood educators in its licensed child care facilities in 2022 through a landmark initiative supported by tax revenue. The initiative is designed to increase early educators’ wages to achieve pay parity between early educators and their K–12 school counterparts. These wage enhancements have demonstrated continued benefits for child care businesses, educators, and children.

What We Learned

Between March 2023 and March 2024, 64 percent of educators maintained employment at the same licensed child care center. When educators left their jobs, most left the DC child care field altogether (77 percent of teachers who left), whereas just under one quarter left for a job in another DC child care center.

Educators’ employment patterns over this period indicate a preference for employment at centers receiving funding to implement wage enhancements.

• Centers serving children with subsidies, in particular, saw much lower educator turnover when offering wage enhancements compared with centers that did not.
• Educators switching employers or newly beginning a career in DC child care were more likely to seek employment at a center offering enhanced wages.
• In interviews, center directors shared views on the importance of offering higher wages and described how competitive wages offered at other centers might impact their staffing and sustainability.

How We Did It

We are undertaking a multiyear analysis of DC’s wage enhancement program for early educators in licensed child care facilities. For this analysis of fiscal year 2024 implementation, we analyzed staff records and licensing data on 305 child care centers that operated from 2023 to 2024 to document year-over-year turnover rates. We also present insights from interviews with 20 center directors conducted from December 2024 to February 2025.