Fight for $15 leaders headed to the White House’s United State of Women Summit

Child care workers who are leaders in the Fight for $15 traveled to Washington DC to discuss the need for higher wages for child care providers and quality, affordable child care for all families.

Tonia McMillian, a child care provider from Bellflower, California, attended the summit: “Quality child care is a struggle for too many families and too many care providers can’t afford to stay in these jobs and still afford shoes, books, and healthy food for our kids. It’s a national problem, and we need a national commitment to raise up families everywhere.

At the summit, child care providers and other Fight for $15 leaders spoke on panels and discussed the need to invest in early childhood education and the women who teach and care for our youngest learners. Child care providers are currently among the lowest paid workers in the country, with a median hourly wage 39.3% lower than the median hourly wage of workers in other occupations. More than 90 percent of child care workers cannot afford a local one-person family budget in the majority of cities and other nonmetropolitan areas through the country.