The Worthy Wage Campaign

The Worthy Wage Campaign is a grassroots effort led by child care teachers, family child care providers, school age teaching staff, Head Start teachers and others who work directly with children to mobilize to improve the compensation and work environments for the early care and education workforce. Together, advocates have a stronger voice and are able to build alliances with parents and others in the community, foster respect, and promote accessible and affordable high-quality early care and education to meet the diverse needs of children and families.

The Worthy Wage Campaign, began in 1991 and was coordinated by CCW until 1999. The national campaign, originally intended to last five years, was initiated to draw attention to the importance of child care work and the urgent need to improve child care jobs. The campaign was highly successful in creating a network of individuals, advocates, parents, and most importantly locally-based campaigns for whom CCW provided resources and technical support, offered leadership training opportunities, and organized an annual retreat.

While the work of the campaign has been fulfilled in the time chosen, the impact that it has left on the early care and education community remains. Several communities continue to be a powerful voice for the early care and education workforce by organizing activities on Worthy Wage Day in honor of the victorious campaign.

To learn more about the movement to improve the compensation for the early care and education workforce, click here for a paper by Marcy Whitebook, “Working For Worthy Wages: The Child Care Compensation Movement, 1970-2001” (PDF)