Janeese Lewis George: Honor the spirit of Emancipation Day and restore the Pay Equity Fund

As a native Washingtonian, I have witnessed the invaluable contributions of early childhood educators in my community. And, as the great-granddaughter and niece of early educators, I know full well the sacrifices we ask our child care workforce to make every day. 

Early educators like my family members have been underpaid and undervalued in society for decades. And this is no accident. It is a legacy that traces its ugly roots back to slavery, when Black women were forced to work as caregivers for white families for no pay. Even after emancipation and the formal end of Jim Crow, this legacy has persisted as Black women have systematically been denied their worth, including those receiving very little pay as domestic workers. Indeed, the expectation of Black women to raise society’s children with no recognition of the value of their labor is the rotted infrastructure of our modern-day, broken child care system.

Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia is an opportunity to examine the historical systems that have produced modern injustices, such as those in early child care and education. This is a time for us to recommit to fighting for racial justice in all aspects of District policy.

That is why I — along with my colleagues on the DC Council and those in the early education sector — am so frustrated with Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposal to eliminate the transformative Pay Equity Fund and relegate early educators back to a racist legacy of under-compensation.

The Pay Equity Fund is a first-of-its-kind program intended to provide fair compensation and free or low-cost health care to early educators in the District. Beginning in 2021, the District made a commitment to use public dollars to make sure early educators earned a fair wage as the backbone of our education system. In doing so, the DC Council acknowledged the racist and sexist history tied to child care and said “no more.” The program was funded by an increase in the income tax rate for DC’s highest earners. As a Ward 4 resident, I am proud of our wealthier neighbors Districtwide who said, “Yes, raise our taxes,” so we can pay early educators equitably.  

The Pay Equity Fund program is working and has already been life-changing. One teacher I know is currently in the process of purchasing her first home — something she could not afford to do without the Pay Equity Fund. For other early educators, the Pay Equity Fund enables them for the first time to go back to school, to save, or to comfortably cover expenses such as rent, food and child care for their own children — financial stability my family members seldom had.

In the face of this progress, Mayor Bowser chose to eliminate the fund in her proposed budget for fiscal year 2025. Despite the mayor’s budget theme of “shared sacrifice,” the burden of her proposed cuts in fact falls disproportionately on the shoulders of those who can least afford it, like our early educators. This is a step in the wrong direction; it entrenches inequality in the District and risks our larger economic recovery.

Eliminating the Pay Equity Fund would mean pay cuts for over 4,000 early childhood educators, many of whom earn the DC minimum wage, or about $35,000 annually. The Pay Equity Fund increased their wages to between $50,000 and $75,000 — depending on the educator’s role and credentials. This helped close the gap with their peers in DC Public Schools, who typically receive starting teacher salaries between $60,000 and $70,000.  

If early educators leave their jobs due to pay cuts, early learning programs across the city will be forced to increase their prices or even to close — putting the cost on families or leaving them without access to high-quality, reliable care for their children. With current demand for infant and toddler child care exceeding supply by 59%, the District cannot afford to lose any early learning programs or educators.

The District made a commitment to early educators. We cannot ask them to go back to earning minimum wage. That would be an insult to the legacy of Emancipation Day, which requires us to continually strive toward the elimination of racial inequality in the city we all call home. My ask is clear: We must restore the Pay Equity Fund in the fiscal year 2025 budget.

As a councilmember, I take my commitment to District educators seriously. I will not balance this difficult budget on the backs of Black and brown women — our children’s first teachers in the education continuum — and take the District backward. 

Janeese Lewis George represents Ward 4 on the DC Council.

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