Child care centers warn of risks from higher minimum wage

Megan Burrow
NorthJersey

TRENTON — Child care providers warned Thursday of a looming crisis if state subsidies are not adjusted for the minimum wage increase, which will raise the salaries of the state’s lowest-paid workers but, they say, could put children and families in jeopardy.

Administrators, teachers and advocates were in Trenton to press lawmakers for an additional $19 million in state funding to offset the impact of the minimum wage increases in the coming fiscal year.

Children, parents and child care workers gather in Trenton Thursday, May 30.

Centers could be forced to lay off employees, reduce staff hours, raise rates for parents already struggling to pay tuition or close their doors entirely if the state doesn’t step in to offset the rising costs, advocates said.

Under the law Gov. Phil Murphy signed in February, the minimum wage is set to go from $8.85 an hour to $10 an hour for most workers on July 1 and will rise each year before reaching $15 an hour in 2024.

“Talk to any working family in New Jersey and they will talk about the challenges of finding affordable, accessible high-quality child care, but finding child care is even harder for those who have low-wage jobs, who rely on state assistance to afford care,” said Cecilia Zalkind, president and CEO of Advocates for Children of New Jersey. “It is those families and the child care providers they depend upon who are facing a crisis unless our state leaders act.”

Cecilia Zalkind, President/CEO, Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

More than 3,000 child care centers in the state accept state subsidies for children up to age 13, in programs ranging from full-time day care to after-school care. Nearly 50,000 New Jersey children are eligible for subsidized care, Zalkind said.

A quarter of child care workers are paid $9.62 an hour or less and about 65 percent of centers' costs are labor-related, said Cynthia Rice, the senior policy analyst for Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

Increasing the minimum wage to $10 will raise overall costs for centers around 7%, or $19 million, based on cost estimates from the group’s study on child care budgets and a federal cost calculator.

The child care industry is different from other businesses dealing with increased costs, Rice said.

Staff levels can’t be cut below required student-teacher ratios, and it’s difficult to pass costs on to parents, especially low-income families that cannot afford to make up the difference.

“Providers will either have to reduce any type of marginal staff they have, they may have to stop taking children who are eligible for subsidies, or, as we’ve heard time and time again from providers: In time we think we’ll have to close our doors,” Rice said.

The group collected 1,100 signatures in support of the additional funding in a little more than a week. In response to the petition, state Sen. Joe Vitale, D-Middlesex, said he will sponsor a budget resolution to address the issue.

“Making sure that those dollars are included in the proposed state budget so that parents can work and child care centers can remain open must be a state priority,” he said in a statement.

Child care providers said they are happy to pay a living wage to their employees, who are historically some of the lowest earners in the state. But New Jersey needs to invest to help centers meet the higher costs, they said.

If the costs are passed on to parents, many may choose to take their children from high-quality centers and put them into unlicensed facilities.

“You’re asking parents to make a choice between good-quality care and maybe not-so-good-quality care, unlicensed care, the woman down the street, grandma who’s overworked — it’s not fair,” said Candace Raymond, the director of Happy Today and Bright Tomorrow in Union City.

Naome Dunnell of Newark is all too familiar with the difficult decisions working parents face regarding child care. The mother of three just misses the financial cut-off to qualify for a subsidy and often struggles to pay the tuition bill.

“You are either eligible or you’re not,” she said. "It's tough."

When her second son was born two years ago, she asked her mother-in-law to look after him while she worked. But she sent him to day care after he tested positive for high levels of lead, which was found in his grandmother’s house.

“Every month I have to make tough decisions about which bills I can afford to pay,” Dunnell said. “Without access to affordable, quality child care, my family and families like mine will continue to struggle.”

Email: burrow@northjersey.com

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