UNLV Study says workers in industry are underpaid

Wednesday, Feb. 17, 1999 | 9:07 a.m.

"It's nothing short of a travesty," said Louise Helton, a children's advocate for the independent Success by Six Coalition. "Do people value their cars as much as their kids? Of course not, but the reality is child-care workers are getting paid about the same as people washing cars. Dishwashers and maids are getting more. You can't help but see there's something wrong with this picture."

"We obviously need to be compensating these people a lot more if we expect more. Everyone knows you get what you pay for."

The hourly wage of a child-care center worker averages $6.46 in Nevada and about $6.56 in Clark County, about the same as it was in 1986, said Vince Juaristi, who directs the UNLV Nevada Institute for Children.

"We're leaving our kids with them for eight hours and we should probably be paying them what they are worth," he said.

Juaristi estimates Nevada ranks near the bottom in the nation in the pay given child-care workers, although he did not have a state-by-state comparison.

He said Nevadans should strive to double the pay offered to child-care center workers to $26,000 a year, an effort that would cost $33.5 million annually.

The institute's study shows 65 percent of child-care center workers have no health insurance, 56 percent have no sick days, and 82 percent have no company-sponsored retirement benefits. Offering health insurance alone to all child-care center workers would cost $1.4 million a year, he said.

Juaristi and Helton said consumers should bear some of the costs of wage increases and state legislators should offer incentives to businesses that sponsor on-site day care or offer their employees child-care vouchers.