It’s 8 a.m., and like every other morning at this time, I open the door of the day care classroom. I say, “Good morning, everybody,” to the kids and my teaching partner, a tall woman with a commanding voice. She is fifty-four years old, with three grown kids, and has been working on the job for six years. She immediately informs me that she is quitting.

I already heard her voice the possibility of leaving childcare to work at Starbucks, Target, or Amazon. But I never took these claims seriously. She explained that we were well paid in the childcare job market but poorly paid in the general job market. She left day care that day, then traveled from St Louis to Kansas City to work in a warehouse, probably receiving more money for longer work hours.

Typical American early educators are poor. The two of us earned about $13 per hour; many early educators earn just above minimum wage. In Missouri, where I live, the average wage for a childcare worker is $11.71, according to the CareerExplorer website. Last year, 29 percent of childcare workers were so poor that they experienced food insecurity, according to a paper by researchers at the University of Oregon. Economic insecurity is a reality among the childcare workforce, regardless of years spent in the field or higher education degrees.