by Funmi Akinnawonu, FPWA Senior Policy Analyst
July 21, 2026 — In America, childcare has been associated with Black women since the days of chattel slavery and has remained an undervalued and underpaid profession throughout American history. Today, recognizing the growing challenges that families face in finding and affording childcare, New York City and State are making historic investments into the childcare system as part of a broader affordability agenda. But a true affordability agenda cannot simply invest in the expansion of the childcare sector. To make sustainable change and to drive economic security for New Yorkers, it must also center the needs of childcare workers. Today is Black Women’s Pay day, a date which symbolizes how far into the current year a Black woman must work to earn the same amount that a white, non-Hispanic man earned in the previous year. It seems a good opportunity to reflect on an event I attended this past March that put into context how the child care system perpetuates economic insecurity for both parents and workers.
I had the pleasure of watching the documentary “Make a Circle” with an audience of early childhood education (ECE) workers. The screening was hosted by one of FPWA’s member organizations, the Day Care Council of New York, which is a member-based organization of childcare centers and family child programs in New York City. The film billed as “a love letter to early childhood educators and a rallying cry for a childcare system in crisis” was just as advertised. It followed a group of ECE workers in California who worked in preschools and daycares during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many childcare programs closed, these were the childcare workers who kept their doors open to care for children whose parents were essential workers with in-person jobs that could not be made remote.
As the film played, the auditorium was filled with laughter and joy as we got a glimpse into the bond between the children and the ECE workers, and with affirming murmurs as the ECE workers discussed the difficulty of remaining in the profession and taking care of their families. The film highlighted the myriad of struggles ECE workers face, like the provider who could not close her childcare program when recovering from back surgery, who noted that the children didn’t understand why she couldn’t carry them, or the ECE worker who went back to school to become an elementary school teacher so he could earn higher wages and be better able to support his family. When the film discussed affordability and the need for policy change, the filmmakers centered both the unaffordable nature of childcare for parents/guardians as well and the insufficiency of salaries and benefits for ECE workers and providers.
After the screening, I participated in a panel discussion hosted by DCCNY Executive Director Tara N. Gardner. The panel featured Jen Bradwell, one of the film’s co-directors, two ECE providers Ingrid Matias Chungata, the Executive Director of Nuestros Niños Child Development School, and Erica Martinez Rodriguez, the Founder & Educator of Fundamental Daycare. My role on the panel was to discuss the impact of occupational segregation on childcare workers. Occupational segregation refers to the systematic sorting of workers into different industries and roles along lines of race, gender, immigration status, disability, and other marginalized identities. Childcare workers in New York City are an example of a workforce impacted by occupational segregation, as they are disproportionately women, immigrants, and People of Color. Earlier that month, FPWA published Unequal by Design: Occupational Segregation, Essential Labor, and Economic Disparities in New York City, where we reflected on the development of occupational segregation, exploring both the laws and policies that target and sort particular demographics into low-wage, exploitative fields as well as the chronic disinvestment within communities that lead to a concentration of care workers in localities that have received less monetary investment.
As New York City continues to expand 3K, pilot a program for 2K, and move toward universal childcare, it must think about wages, benefits, and workforce development for the New Yorkers who provide care . This is needed to adjust for new entrants to the profession, but also for those who have been in these professions for a long time. Universal childcare without a focus on the economic security of the workforce will perpetuate the affordability crisis. Low pay and benefits will make it both difficult to grow the sector and to retain experienced childcare workers. We are in a moment where the need for additional childcare workers is front of mind for policymakers. On Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, it is important to remember the long history of undervaluing this work in America, and the consequences this has had on the economic security of its workers. New York has an opportunity to model what universal childcare could mean not only for struggling parents, but also an essential but chronically underpaid workforce in need of better pay and benefits.
