What does a CDA do to your pay?
Our research found no single national CDA salary figure: the federal wage series we cite describes occupations, not credentials, so it reports no figure for CDA holders as a group.
What the verified data does show is the three channels where the credential turns into money — lead-teacher eligibility, education-based supplements, and credential-linked minimum salaries.
Here is each one, with its source.
Typical pay with a CDA
Our research found no federal wage series that isolates CDA holders — the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey reports pay by occupation, not by credential.
Two occupations that cover center teaching staff, both from the May 2025 release, are the anchors used here:
- Preschool teachers, except special education (SOC 25-2011) — the occupation covering preschool and pre-K teachers: a national median of $18.34 an hour ($38,140 a year) and a mean of $20.69 an hour ($43,030 a year). Ten percent earned less than $13.94 an hour ($28,990 a year), and ten percent earned more than $29.52 an hour ($61,390 a year).
- Childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) — the occupation that covers aides and assistants in centers: a national median of $16.82 an hour ($34,980 a year).
Read both numbers with their limits.
They are medians for whole occupations, not for credential holders: educators with a CDA and educators without one sit inside the same statistic.
OEWS figures also describe employees — the survey excludes self-employed family child care providers and private-household workers.
And the spread is wide, so a real offer depends on your role, your state, the setting, and whether a supplement or pay-floor program lifts the program's pay.
For the full occupation tables by role and state, see our childcare pay scale.
How a CDA unlocks lead roles
The Child Development Associate (CDA) credential is awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition.
BLS describes it as the credential states most often require of childcare workers who need a national credential, and it must be renewed every 3 years — so keeping it current is part of keeping the qualification on your resume.
If you are weighing the credential itself, our guide covers what the CDA is, how to earn it and how renewal works.
The pay effect runs through role eligibility: when a state's licensing rules require a childcare worker to hold a national credential, BLS says the credential they most often require is the CDA.
A move from an assistant position into a lead role is one place that eligibility can turn into money — the raise comes with the title change, not from the credential by itself.
Our research found no verified national figure for how much more lead teachers earn than assistants, and no verified listing-based differential either: DC's schedule in the next section prices an assistant teacher with a CDA and a lead teacher with a CDA at the same minimum.
Keep the credential active.
Because it has to be renewed every 3 years, letting it lapse can cost you the qualification your current role — or your next application — rests on.
Requirements are set state by state
Supplements and bonuses for a CDA
The second channel is direct: education-based salary supplements, which state programs pay to educators who hold a given education level.
Two documented programs show how that kind of pay works, and one of them names the CDA directly.
New Mexico. The state's Early Childhood Wage Supplement pays education-based supplements twice a year, in January and June, to educators in licensed or registered home programs, Head Start and Early Head Start, and community-based NM PreK classrooms.
Its lowest rung — Level 1 — is 3 ECE credit hours or a CDA, and levels run up to Level 9 (120 ECE credits).
Applicants must work at least 20 hours a week, hold the qualifying education (or be enrolled) and earn under a wage cap: the program's administration site says under $18 an hour, while the state ECECD page still says $16 or less.
Dollar amounts per level are not published on the pages we read.
North Carolina. Child Care WAGE$, run by Early Years, Inc., pays education-based salary supplements to teachers, directors and family child care providers working with children birth to 5 in participating counties.
Eligibility means working in a participating county, earning at or below the local income cap ($19, $23 or $25 an hour, set by the local Smart Start partnership and fixed until June 2027), working at least 10 hours a week, and holding an education level on the WAGE$ scale.
Supplements are paid after each completed six-month commitment period at the same program.
Early Years reports an average six-month supplement of $1,285 across the program — a program-wide figure, not a CDA-holder figure.
Our research did not verify the current WAGE$ scale — which education levels it lists and the dollar amount for each — so check the program's current scale, including whether a CDA counts.
The T.E.A.C.H.
Early Childhood National Center tracks which states run WAGE$-model programs, including Florida (INCENTIVE$), Iowa and Tennessee.
For the full rundown of supplement and bonus programs, our wage supplement programs guide tracks each one by state.
Program rules change — confirm before you count on one
CDA vs associate degree pay
The cleanest like-for-like numbers on credential pay come from Washington, DC, where the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund publishes minimum salaries by role and credential for the facilities that join it.
Effective January 1, 2026 (fiscal year 2026 — DC reduced the minimums that day), the FY26 schedule read as below.
FY27 minimums, which apply from October 2026, were not found in our research, so confirm the current amounts with OSSE.
| Role and credential | FY26 minimum salary | Hourly |
|---|---|---|
| Assistant teacher with a CDA | $48,736 | $23.43 |
| Lead teacher with a CDA | $48,736 | $23.43 |
| Lead teacher with an ECE associate (or 12 ECE credits) | $60,678 | $29.17 |
| Lead teacher with an ECE bachelor's (or a bachelor's plus 12 ECE credits) | $71,010 | $34.14 |
Three things to read from it.
First, in DC the associate step is worth more than the CDA step for the same lead-teacher role — where a schedule like this applies, the degree is the bigger pay lever.
Second, these are minimums for participating facilities, not a national salary table: DC facilities are not required to join the fund, and participants must be OSSE-licensed and agree to pay at least the minimums by role and credential unless OSSE approves a waiver.
Third, the schedule prices credentials inside one program — it does not tell you what a CDA or an associate adds to a paycheck anywhere else.
The education ladder shows up in requirements too.
BLS says preschool teachers typically need at least an associate degree, and public-school preschool teachers generally need a bachelor's degree and an early childhood license.
Head Start standards (45 CFR 1302, administered by the Office of Head Start) set the bar for that setting: per BLS, center-based Head Start preschool teachers need at least an associate degree, and at least 50% of Head Start preschool teachers nationwide must hold a bachelor's degree in early childhood education or a related field.
If your path runs toward those settings, the bar BLS describes is a degree — at least an associate for center-based Head Start preschool teachers, generally a bachelor's in public schools — and a CDA is a credential, not a degree, so it does not meet that bar on its own.
Negotiating a raise after your CDA
Be skeptical of any standard number here.
Our research found no verified source for typical raise sizes, sign-on bonuses or lead-versus-assistant pay differentials in childcare listings, so our research cannot give you a number for what a CDA is worth at raise time.
What you can do is anchor the conversation to the credential-linked money that provably exists.
- Ask whether your program participates in a supplement or pay-floor program — WAGE$ in its states, a schedule like DC's — and whether your CDA counts toward an eligible education level there.
- Document what the credential changed for the program: the rooms you can now lead, the roles you can hold, and how your program's own pay schedule treats those roles.
- Check who paid for the credential. Some employers cover it — Bright Horizons' 2025 10-K lists its Horizons CDA and Degree Program, which pays for a CDA, associate or bachelor's ECE degree at no cost. If yours did, ask how the new qualification shows up in your rate.
- Time the ask for when the credential matters most: a lead opening, enrollment season, or a funding round that lifts pay.
If the answer is still no, the credential keeps its value on the outside market: BLS describes it as the credential states most often require of childcare workers who need a national credential, and it must be renewed every 3 years, so it stays current for the openings that name it.
And the occupation medians in the first section are your reality check — at a national median of $18.34 an hour for preschool teachers, an offer near the occupation's higher percentiles is measurably above the middle.
You do not need to guess at a percentage to make that case.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Supplement and pay-program rules change; confirm current eligibility and amounts with the program named, and staff-qualification rules with your state child care licensing agency.