The 2016 inaugural edition of the biennial "Early Childhood Workforce Index" represented initial efforts to establish a baseline description of early childhood employment conditions and policies on a state-by-state basis in order to improve early childhood jobs. This 2018 edition, as well as future editions, will focus on tracking progress and identifying trends in the states over time. It provides an appraisal of current workforce conditions and policies across states and notes changes since 2016. It is divided into four topical chapters: (1) About the Early Childhood Workforce provides a national snapshot of characteristics of the early educator workforce across settings and discusses state-level variation; (2) Earnings and Economic Security provides national and state data on early childhood education workforce pay in relation to other occupations and presents new analyses of pay inequities across the field; (3) Early Childhood Workforce Policies assesses state policies in five areas: qualifications and educational supports; work environments; compensation and financial relief strategies; workforce data; and financial resources; (4) Family and Income Support Policies assesses state policies across occupations in two areas: income supports and health and well-being. [For "Early Childhood Workforce Index, 2016" see ED568873.]