What can improve the hiring and retention of care workers? Research led by Robert Goerge at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) will examine the labor market for childcare workers using linked data from multiple states. The project will construct a longitudinal dataset by combining administrative records, including childcare workers’ employment and wage histories as well as their educational credentials. The team will use variation in locations with different policy shifts—like local minimum wage increases or the rollout of universal pre-K—to estimate the threshold wage needed to retain childcare staff and identify any unintended consequences, such as daycare teachers being drawn away to work at local schools instead. The research will yield new evidence about labor policies in this critical sector.  Along with academic publications, expected outputs include interactive data dashboards that give states real-time insight into their childcare labor markets.