Daycare teacher salary

The current federal numbers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wage data for two distinct childcare occupations, and conflating them is the most common mistake in any discussion of childcare pay.

Childcare workers — the occupation covering most center and home-based staff — had a median wage of $16.82 an hour, or $34,980 a year, in the May 2025 data. There were about 1,010,300 such jobs in 2025.

Preschool teachers, a separate occupation that BLS says typically needs at least an associate's degree, had a median of $18.34 an hour, or $38,140 a year, across 583,200 jobs. The gap is $3,160 a year, or about nine percent.

BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 wage data, checked 2026-10-18. Median means half earn more and half less — it is not a starting rate and not a market rate for any one city.

What a median does and does not tell you

A national median is a poor guide to what you will pay in a particular city, because childcare wages track local cost of living and the local minimum wage closely. In high-cost metros the entry rate for an uncredentialed assistant can sit well above the national median for the whole occupation.

It is a good guide to structure. The nine percent gap between the two occupations is roughly what the extra education and credentials are worth in the market. A program posting a role that requires a CDA at the childcare-worker median is competing in the wrong market, which is why the post stays open. If you are deciding which credential to fund first, see the CDA vs an associate degree in early childhood.

For a family reading this from the other side: the median is also the answer to why tuition is what it is. Wages are the largest line in a childcare budget, and they are not high.

Where it is going

BLS projects childcare-worker employment to fall about two percent between 2025 and 2035, while preschool teaching grows about four percent. Read together, the credentialed end of the market is tightening slightly and the uncredentialed end is not expanding.

Neither projection tells a program director whether they can fill a room next month. Turnover does that, and turnover in childcare is driven by the things that are not on the pay line: schedule stability, breaks that actually happen, paid training time, and whether the director is in ratio when someone calls in sick.

The programs that hold staff at the market rate are, overwhelmingly, the ones that solved those four. The programs competing on rate alone are paying more and still hiring.

Reading it as an employer

Price the role against the right occupation, then against your local market rather than the national median. Post the rate — postings without a rate get fewer and worse applicants, and every applicant assumes the worst.

Remember the load. A $17 hourly rate is roughly $20 all-in once FICA, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation and any benefits are added, and it is the all-in figure that has to work against your tuition.

And remember what a raise buys. Moving a room's two teachers up a dollar an hour costs about $4,160 a year in wages before load — often less than the cost of one turnover cycle, agency cover and the enrollment lost while a room is short.