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5 facts about child care costs in the US

Online Niel October 26, 2024

Children at Bright Horizons Preschool in New York City hold on to a string to make sure they stay together as they walk through a park. (Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Child care costs were a hot topic in 2024 presidential race. Here are key facts about the issue, based on data from federal government and Pew Research Center surveys.

The Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to examine child care costs in the United States and how Americans view the issue.

Data on estimated average child care costs comes from the US Department of Labor National Childcare Price Database (NDCP). The most recent NDCP data is from 2018 and is expressed in real dollars from 2022 to account for inflation. Some widely quoted private organizations and advocacy groups released their own, much more recent estimates. But these estimates don’t provide as much detail about breaks by population size, child age, etc., as the Labor Department estimates.

For January 2020 daycare and preschool price inflation data, we used the widely cited U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation metric, Consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U); these data are not seasonally adjusted.

More information about the Center’s surveys cited in this review, including questions and methodology, can be found at the links in the text.

Child care costs vary widely in the United States. In 2018, the average annual cost of child care for one child – expressed in 2022 dollars – ranged from $5,357 to $17,171, according to the latest estimates available from the US Department of Labor. But those numbers differed significantly based on several factors, including whether the program is:

A bar chart showing that child care costs in the US are higher for younger children and in counties with larger populations.

At home, caring for a small group of children of different ages in a residential setting;
Or they are center-based, which usually supervise a larger number of children who are age-grouped in a non-residential setting.

Center-based programs are often more expensive, especially for younger children. And costs are higher in more densely populated areas of the country. For example, the average annual cost of caring for children under 2 in center-based programs in 2018 ranged from $8,310 in counties with fewer than 100,000 residents to $17,171 in counties with populations of 1 million or more. (These costs are again in 2022 dollars.)

Many families spend a considerable part of their income on childcare, according to the same estimates of the Department of Labor. In a given county, the average cost per child for paid care in 2018 was between 8.0% and 19.3% of the median household income in that county, depending on the age of the child, the type of child care program, and county size.

The most expensive form of child care in 2018 was for infants in center programs. The average cost per child of those programs in small counties was 12.3 percent of the median household income in those areas that year. The share increased to 13.9% in medium counties, 15.7% in large counties and 19.3% in very large counties with 1 million inhabitants or more.

It is important to note that these figures are expressed as a share of counties median family income. This means that lower-income families may spend an even greater share of their annual income on paid care per child.

Some forms of childcare have become considerably more expensive since the coronavirus pandemic began. Between January 2020 and September 2024, the price of pre-school and daycare rose by around 22%, according to data from Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ Consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U). And it has increased by 6% since September 2023 alone.

(In CPI-U, kindergarten and preschool element covers costs for pre-school children, including pre-school educational programs and supervision by “persons whose occupation is to regularly care for pre-school children”. (Excludes expenses for occasional babysitting or babysitting, daycare, camps, or after-school programs.)

A bar chart showing that nearly 4 in 10 lower-income US parents reported challenges paying for child care in 2022.

For some parents, childcare costs can be a source of financial stress. Two in ten parents who say they need childcare reported in a fall 2022 Center survey that there were times in the last 12 months when they didn’t have enough money to pay for it. Parents with lower incomes (38%) were more likely to report challenges paying for childcare that year.

Some working parents also worry about how unexpected childcare emergencies might affect their jobs. In the fall 2022 survey, 19 percent of working parents said they would be extremely or very worried about losing wages if they had to take a day or two off work to help a sick child or because of health problems. child care. This share reached 45% among lower-income working parents. And 22% of working parents in this income group said they would be very worried losing their job if she had to take time off due to childcare issues.

Most Americans say that offering free child care would encourage more people to have children. US Fertility Rate hit an all-time low in 2023and Americans are more likely to perceive the negative effects than the positive effects of fewer people having children in the future, according to a spring 2024 Center survey. Against this background, 60% of US adults say that the federal government providing free child care would be extremely or very effective in encouraging more people to have children in the future.

A bar chart showing that a majority of Americans say that providing free child care would encourage more people to have children.

About half of Americans — regardless of whether they actually support the policies — also say requiring employers to provide paid family leave (51%) and giving more tax credits to parents (49%) would be highly effective.

A separate survey of the center in spring 2024 found that general affordability concerns play a role in younger Americans’ decisions about having children. Among adults under 50 who don’t have children and say they’re unlikely ever to, 36% say a major reason they can’t afford them. Another 24% say this is a minor reason why they did not have children.