Child Care WAGE$ Program: How the Education-Based Salary Supplement Works

Child Care WAGE$ is an education-based salary supplement: money the program adds to your income on top of the paycheck your center or family child care home already pays.

It is run by Early Years, Inc., the North Carolina organization formerly known as Child Care Services Association, and it pays teachers, directors and family child care providers who work with children between birth and 5 in participating counties.

Education-based is the operating idea.

Your supplement is keyed to the education level you hold on the WAGE$ scale.

The payment rules also reward continuity: payments attach to six-month commitment periods completed at the same program.

Is it worth applying?

For an eligible educator, the trade is a good one.

The money is on top of regular pay, the continuity the program asks for is staying at the same program rather than moving on, and it pays for the education level you already hold.

WAGE$ is easy to mix up with T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood, and the two are siblings rather than the same thing.

T.E.A.C.H. has run since 1990 as a cost-shared scholarship that pays most of the cost of tuition, books and travel, with a commitment to stay in your child care setting for a period set by each state program.

T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood North Carolina is administered by Early Years too, and the T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood National Center is itself a division of Early Years.

In short: T.E.A.C.H. pays for the education; WAGE$ pays you for holding it.

One more name you may come across: an Infant-Toddler Educator AWARD$.

Our research could not verify its current status, so confirm it with Early Years directly before counting on it.

NC WAGE$ eligibility rests on four pieces, and you can check each one against your own situation before you start an application.

• You work in a participating county. WAGE$ operates county by county, so participation where you work is the first gate.
• You earn at or below the local income cap — $19, $23 or $25 an hour. Your local Smart Start partnership selects which cap applies in your county, and those cap levels are fixed until June 2027.
• You work at least 10 hours a week. Part-time hours can still qualify.
• You hold an education level on the WAGE$ scale. The scale is what the payment amount keys to, which is what makes the supplement education-based.

The population the program describes is broad: teachers, directors and family child care providers working with children ages birth to 5.

The same program therefore serves center teaching staff, directors and home-based providers, as long as the county and the eligibility pieces above line up.

Eligibility for a supplement is also not the same thing as qualification for the job.

The WAGE$ checklist asks about your county, your pay, your hours and your education level; the credentials your role requires come from a different set of rules.

What your state requires of lead teachers and assistants is its own subject — our guide to staff requirements in this state covers the hiring rules themselves.

The headline figure is an average: Early Years reports a $1,285 average six-month supplement across the program.

Two cautions travel with that number.

It is a program-wide average, so your own payment can sit above or below it, and the page we read does not state the period the average covers.

What sets your individual amount is a short list.

Your education level on the WAGE$ scale is central, because the supplement is education-based and keyed to the level you hold.

Your county's funding tier matters too — counties choose one of three funding tiers, so the same education level can pay differently across county lines.

And your hours adjust the check: payments are prorated if you average under 30 hours a week.

The dollar scale itself — the amount paid at each education level — is published by Early Years as a fact sheet our research could not retrieve, so we cannot print the scale here, and a chart found elsewhere may be out of date.

Ask Early Years for the current scale before you estimate what your own level would pay.

For an educator at or below the income cap, though, the shape of the deal is the point: $1,285 on average, every six months, tied to the education level you already hold — and the continuity the program asks for is staying at the same program.

WAGE$ is administered by Early Years, so the program's own pages are the place to start and the final word on current terms.

The sequence below lines your paperwork up before you begin, because every piece of eligibility is something you can verify in advance.

Renewing is the same cycle: each completed six-month commitment period at the same program earns the next payment.

Because the period is tied to one program, an educator weighing a job move should ask Early Years how a mid-period move affects a payment before giving notice — the pages we read describe the period as completed at the same program, and the program can tell you how it applies that rule.

The timing follows the work.

Payments are issued after you complete your assigned six-month commitment period, not before or during it — so the supplement covering one stretch of months can arrive after that stretch has ended.

Stay eligible all 12 months and that means two payments a year; average under 30 hours a week and the payments are prorated.

One more date is worth knowing: the income-cap levels of $19, $23 or $25 an hour are fixed until June 2027, so the cap structure your county selected is not scheduled to move before then.

Confirm the cap with your local Smart Start partnership when you apply, since the cap is chosen locally.

On taxes, the honest answer is that our research recorded nothing on how WAGE$ payments are reported, and the program pages we read do not settle the question.

Treat it as a question to ask, not one to assume: ask Early Years how the payment will be reported, keep any letters or forms the program sends you, and put your specific situation to a tax professional before you file.

The WAGE$ model travels.

The T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood National Center's Programs by State page, checked October 2026, lists which states run T.E.A.C.H. and WAGE$-model programs, with Florida INCENTIVE$, Iowa WAGE$ and Tennessee WAGE$ among its examples.

Each state's version carries its own administrator, eligibility rules and scale, so treat the shared name as a family resemblance, not identical terms.

• Iowa. Child Care WAGE$ Iowa, run by Iowa AEYC and funded by Iowa HHS, pays annual education-based salary supplements to staff earning $25 an hour or less who work 20 or more hours a week in an HHS-regulated program that accepts Child Care Assistance. Amounts effective July 1, 2025 range from $550 (CDA, Tier 0) to $11,500 (Level 10, Tier 2), with Tier 2 applying to programs at IQ4K levels 3–5.
• Tennessee. WAGE$ Tennessee is administered by Signal Centers in Chattanooga. Eligibility includes working in a TDHS-licensed program, meeting the supplement scale's education levels, and at least six months at one program working with children birth to 5 at least 10 hours a week in the classroom. As of 2025, directors' and assistant directors' administrative hours count as eligible.
• Rhode Island. Child Care WAGE$ Rhode Island, run by RIAEYC, provides education-based salary supplements to center educators and family child care providers, funded by a time-limited federal Preschool Development Grant. Our research did not confirm current amounts, so ask the program directly.
• Florida. INCENTIVE$ is administered by the Children's Forum, which also runs T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Florida. Check the Children's Forum's pages for current amounts and eligibility.

States outside the WAGE$ family run educator pay programs under other structures and names.

Our guide to state wage supplements and bonuses maps them program by program.

This page is career information, not licensing, legal or tax advice. Program rules, amounts and eligibility change; confirm current details with Early Years, your local Smart Start partnership, or the program administrator named above.