Nursery Statistics (2026): Volunteer Supply, Childcare Pay, Background-Check Rules & the Screening Gap
Nursery statistics for 2026: childcare worker pay, volunteer participation, federal background-check rules and the screening gap for church and nonprofit nursery programs.
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Nursery volunteers hold some of the most sensitive roles in any church or nonprofit, because they are often the only adult in a room with infants and toddlers. This report pulls together the most reliable national numbers on formal volunteering, the paid childcare workforce that sets the standard for nursery care, the federal background-check rules that govern licensed childcare, and the gap between what people expect and what volunteers actually go through. It is part of our statistics hub, and it is designed for pastors, ministry directors and nonprofit leaders who need defensible benchmarks.
Key takeaways
Who volunteers, and how many
Volunteering has recovered from the pandemic dip. AmeriCorps reported that the national formal volunteering rate rose 5.1 percentage points between 2022 and 2023. A USAFacts summary of the same AmeriCorps and Census data puts formal volunteers at 75.7 million, who gave about 5 billion hours, or an average of 66 hours per person. The Census and AmeriCorps survey itself put the rate at 28.3%, or 75.8 million people, for the same window.
The 2021 figure is the low point. The AmeriCorps 2021 research summary estimated 23.2% of Americans, or 60.7 million people, volunteered formally, down from 30% in 2019, the largest change since the survey began in 2002.
For nursery programs, the broad recovery is good news but does not solve the problem. Churches and nonprofits compete for the same pool of volunteers, and the roles that require screening, such as infant care, are a small share of total opportunities. Our volunteer burnout report covers why experienced helpers leave, which matters because nursery teams usually depend on a handful of long-serving people.
The paid childcare workforce sets the benchmark
Church nurseries are staffed by volunteers, but the paid childcare workforce is the closest national benchmark for what safe, consistent infant and toddler care costs to deliver. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 991,600 childcare worker jobs in 2024, with a median pay of $32,050 a year, or $15.41 an hour. The same BLS profile projects a 3% decline in employment over 2024 to 2034.
Pay is tightly clustered near the bottom of the wage scale. The BLS occupational data show childcare workers at a median well below the all-occupation figure, and the 2025 update places the childcare worker median at $34,980 a year, against $50,980 for all workers.
Where childcare pay sits by setting
Pay varies by employer type. Childcare workers in religious organizations, which is the setting closest to a church nursery, earn more per hour than those in child daycare services, but less than those in public or private elementary schools. The table below uses the BLS May 2024 industry medians, and the preschool figures use the May 2025 release.
| Setting (occupation) | Median hourly, May 2024 | Median annual, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Elementary and secondary schools (childcare workers) | $17.33 | Not reported in source |
| Religious, grantmaking, civic and similar organizations (childcare workers) | $15.12 | Not reported in source |
| Child daycare services (childcare workers) | $14.56 | Not reported in source |
| Religious, grantmaking, civic and similar organizations (preschool teachers) |
