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Pay child care workers a decent wage

The average starting wage for a preschool teacher in Durango is about $9.75/hour, and for a preschool aide, around $8/hour. For a teacher, that figures out to about $1,600 a month, taking home about $1,250 for the month. The least expensive one-bedroom apartment in Durango is around $1,000 a month, including utilities. Do the math.

The sad truth is that the preschool teachers and aides entrusted to taking such good care of our youngest children, our grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, find themselves in an untenable and unsustainable position. Something is seriously wrong here and elsewhere in this country. Most child care workers now make less than an entry-level employee at Walmart, who starts at $10/hour. We pay our sports and entertainment stars millions, and yet we pay the people who spend more face-to-face, one-on-one time with our children than most parents do only a little above minimum wage!

To not pay those people well is foolhardy and dangerous. The best preschool teachers/aides will go elsewhere and sadly into another line of work that pays more. And who is left to care for the children? The unfortunate answer is in the old adage, you get what you pay for.

There is a growing movement in this country for a sustainable wage for service-industry employees, which includes fast-food workers (the people who prepare your food), the motel/hotel workers (the people who clean the rooms and make the beds we sleep on) and now recently, the child care workers of this country. They are asking, pleading and rightfully insisting on a sustainable wage of $15/hour. My calculations show this to be reasonable and fair.

In Durango, they’ll take home about $1,900 a month. Nobody is going to get rich making $15/hour, but it will go a long way toward ensuring that our children will have the best care. Please, Durango, get on board and support these very important people in our youngest childrens’ lives with your voice and your dollars.

H. Michael Ross

Durango



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