Child care costs: Compare US counties
One of the largest struggles families in the U.S. face is finding quality child care they can afford. The search for a center or home-based provider can be overwhelming, and the price tag can be shocking.
Data released recently by the Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, which calculated local child care prices for the U.S., show that families are paying between 8% and 19% of their incomes on child care, amounts the department called “untenable.”
The costs have become increasingly burdensome. A 2011 study from the Census Bureau found families spent around 7% of their incomes on child care. By 2018, only about 2% of the U.S. population lived in counties where the cost of sending an infant to day care cost 7% or less of the median family income, according to the Department of Labor data.
Keeping women from workforce
High child care costs force some mothers who would otherwise work to stay home to care for their children if the price of care outpaces the income they might earn. In its analysis, the Women’s Bureau found a 1% decline in maternal employment for every 10% increase in child care prices.
Effects on families, children
High costs mean hard decisions.
“Faced with these high prices, families have to settle for a child care setting that they might not feel entirely comfortable with, like an unlicensed provider,” said Elizabeth Davis, an economist at the University of Minnesota who studies child care, labor economics and public policy.
Costs might also cause a family to have only one child or delay having additional children.