Childcare centers nationwide, including Wonderspring Early Education in Narberth, are forced to work under full capacity amid a shortage of childcare employees, reports Vanessa Yurkevich for CNN.

Childcare workers, or teachers, as they are called at Wonderspring, are 98 percent women and almost 50 percent people of color.

They are paid poverty-level wages to watch over, care for, and teach the nation’s youngest. But now, there is a shortage of people for this crucial work.

“Finding teachers today is quite a challenge,” said Zakiyyah Boone, CEO of Wonderspring.

Since the center currently has 30 percent of its positions open, several of its classrooms sit empty. This is just above national numbers, which have been showing a 20 percent loss in childcare workers since the pandemic.

“I can’t just sell more toilet paper in order to earn more money to pay my teachers more,” said Boone. ”I also can’t just randomly charge the families 25, 30, 40 percent more in tuition. I have to be able to have funding to do that.”

And while the American Rescue Plan has allotted $39 billion for childcare centers, more money is needed to be able to offer an affordable option of this critical service.

Watch the entire segment at CNN.com.