National and State Child Care Data<\/a> report, there were 14,350 child care workers in Georgia in 2020. That number represents a 17% decline in the number of child care workers from 2019 and a 25% decline since 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn 2020, the annual mean salary for Georgia\u2019s child care workers was $21,100. The ratio of child care workers in Georgia to infants is 1 to 6; 1 to 8 for young toddlers; 1 to 15 for older toddlers; and 1 to 18 for preschoolers. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, best practice ratios should be 1 to 4; 1 to 4; 1 to 6 and 1 to 10 for those respective categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCOVID-19 laid bare many of the challenges in our nation\u2019s child care system,\u201d said Luci Manning, spokesperson for the organization. \u201cThese issues include retaining and recruiting staff, the high-cost burden on parents, and lack of a sustainable business model for child care providers\u2014many of which are women-owned small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the organization, nearly 24 million children ages 5 and under live in the U.S., with 63% living in households in which both parents work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Georgia, there are 784,969 children ages 5 and under, according to the report. While 63% of those children live in households in which both parents work, 24% \u00a0live in families below the poverty line.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new study from a Washington, D.C.-based think tank shows a decline in the number of child care workers in Georgia over the last several years, a decline that has been particularly devastating during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center\u2019s updated National and State Child Care Data report, there were 14,350 child care workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[8506,8782,8474],"class_list":["post-29108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}