SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — For 24 years, Shaunte Brown has been watching her kids grow up. She, like everyone who works in daycare, understands that it’s their job to lay the building blocks of early learning, for the next generation.
"When you have a hand in assisting to raise our future," said Brown. "Knowing you're raising the next doctors, lawyers, politicians, school teachers, it's amazing."
Most parents that drop their kids off at Happy Time Learning Center in South East San Diego, qualify for subsidized child care through the state. Depending on where a daycare center is, the state gives a fixed rate per child, per week. The rate in Brown’s neighborhood is $225 - a number that hasn’t gone up in five years.
"We haven't gotten anything," said Brown. "Everything has increased, our cost of living, but not our salaries."
In Sacramento, the largest daycare workers union in California: Childcare Providers United rallied on the steps of the capitol urging Governor Gavin Newsom to raise the rates around the state. Right now, the union says they’re at the negotiation table and will keep pushing until a deal is done.
For Brown and all the other child care workers of the state, taking care of children can be incredibly rewarding, but their salaries haven’t caught up with the times and they want a fair wage for their work.
"When I say the kids it's not just dealing with the kids every day," said Brown "It's just the whole process of watching them grow into adulthood."
WATCH RELATED: Childcare crisis: The pandemic’s ripple effect on California’s working moms - May 2021