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Lawmakers got a firsthand account this week of the pressure and difficulties faced by child care providers.

The assembly held a joint committee hearing, digging into challenges within the industry and got testimony from those on the front lines who say they're struggling with low pay, short staffing and growing demand.

Raven Santana reports.

The truth is, I am overworked, underpaid.

About 25 year old Jorden Shields was one of more than a dozen educator years that testified at a hearing on New Jersey's child care system.

Shields, who has worked in child care since she was 16, also juggles being a night nanny to a three month old baby, as well as working as a pre-K teacher at the YMCA in Metuchen.

While she loves her job, she says she now fears with her current wage she may not be able to stay in the field longer.

I am drowning in expenses.

And that's how I feel as a 25 year old who lives at home with her parents.

I think you can imagine the challenges that my colleagues with families face.

I've seen a lot of turnover in terms of the teachers and my organization, and it almost always comes down to the pay.

Her concerns were echoed by other child care advocates at a joint hearing by the Assembly, Aging and Human Services Committee and the Assembly.

Children, families and food insecure City Committee.

The purpose was to hear testimony by educators, providers and parents about how to improve the state's child care industry, which many have warned is in crisis.

Glassboro and Gloucester County in my area is known as a child care desert, especially for infants.

That means for every three family boys who need child care, there is one available slot.

So my charge is to provide better than baseline care.

If providers like me do not continue to do better.

The child care desert will grow.

Child care impacts everyone, right?

It literally is everyone's business and without some type of public sustainable investment.

The industry will collapse.

When Fred Smith Jenkins is the director of Early Learning Policy and advocacy at Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

SMITH Jenkins says accessible child care impacts more than just parents and staff.

So part of it is it's just a low wage industry, which kind of leads people to think it's not a complex industry and it is.

We have like these amazing women who are generally working in early care and education and generally minority women who are doing the really hard work to care for our children without getting the professional support through pay and benefits that they deserve.

When we when we really think about it, if we're really trying to move our economy forward, if we really want to have it, our diverse workforce, we know that a lot of time to care and education of children will fall on women.

And so if we do not do something sustainable and that can last right, then we're going to end up seeing more women leaving the workforce because they will not be able to find care and education for their children.

Meghan Tarver Mina is the director of policy at the New Jersey Association for the Education of Young Children.

She says ultimately it's going to take money to fix most of the same challenges expressed by so many who spoke.

And that's why we're here today, is really to start making people recognize that keeping us segregated is hurting the whole.

That's why it's hard, it's expensive and it's long term.

And we're thinking about it.

And Band-Aid one time investment approaches rather than a sustainable long term investment in which we'll see the return on the back end of a child's life.

This is not money poorly spent.

Advocates like Tarver Mena now hope that the legislature will work on funding Jersey's childcare industry so they can hire, retain and pay staff what they deserve.

Almost everyone who spoke stressed that if the child care industry here continues to unravel, so will Jersey's economy.

For NJ Spotlight News on Raven Santana.