Child care cost as much as rent for many families at inflation’s peak, new data shows
Child care cost as much as rent for many families at inflation’s peak, new data shows
“These costs are just untenable for an awful lot of families,” the Labor Department found. But while Trump benefited from voters’ economic ire, the politics of child care aren’t cut-and-dried.
Summary
Child care costs for many U.S. families during peak inflation in 2022 ranged from $6,552 to $15,600 per child, comparable to rent, according to Labor Department data.
These high costs strained household budgets, disproportionately impacted women’s workforce participation, and fueled economic dissatisfaction among voters.
While Kamala Harris proposed policies to reduce child care costs, Donald Trump capitalized on broader economic grievances to expand his voter base, despite offering few specifics on addressing the issue.
Pandemic-era federal aid helped stabilize costs but left parents bearing much of the financial burden.
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And yet the childcare WORKERS can barely afford to live.
You know, I'm starting to wonder if maybe families should form some sort of social club and hire childcare workers directly???
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Aren't staff at daycares way under paid? Where is all the money going?
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Some of it is skimmed off, sure, but most of it is because it's fucking expensive to employ people to just watch kids.
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I just picked a state. Average infant daycare cost is $1172/mo. Maximum of 4 infants per caregiver, so a maximum of $4.688.
Health insurance here averages $400/mo, for an individual (some often paid by the employer).
Assuming they are employed, the employer is paying for federal unemployment insurance, workers compensation insurance, state unemployment insurance. It was really hard to get solid numbers but based on my reading, we can estimate about 2% will go to that.
So we have $4296 left over. Assuming payroll and supplies and everything else costs nothing at all (which is definitely not accurate), and assuming we give the rest straight to the employee... Their gross would be $51,000 roughly.
The average daycare worker in this state makes about $33k/year.
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A senior teacher at the KinderCare that my kid to makes $25/hr. Minimum wage here is $20/hr. The cost per month was about $2500 per child.
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My friend shared how he was able to get a deal of $2500 a month for two kids.
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The owners.
It's not regulated and generally it's hired as "low skill" (it really fucking isn't) so they're very replaceable.
The easiest money is made on old farts and new farts. Nursing homes care assistants are basically on minimum wage while the owners rake in the money.
It's priced, what are you going to do? Not go to work and stay with your gran or child?
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Really awesome that we as a society consider people watching our children at the most important part of their lives “low skill.”
Imagine what our test scores would be like if we considered them as important as hedge fund managers and marketing executives.
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I am in the northeast and it is heavily regulated down to how many hours staff can be on duty and levels of staffing, the simple fact is that especially for those under twelve (where the rules are generally at least two people at all times for a group of ten, under three is literally 1 person per two children), ensuring that you have 10-12 hours of sufficient coverage (most ppl work 8-9 hours plus travel time to work) from background checked and fingerprinted persons while also feeding the children and keep a commercial building open is expensive.
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Rent is a factor probably.
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I’m pretty sure they are underpaid.
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The rest of the 1st World is way ahead of the USA. I like it when the American politicians and business leaders say family values are important. In reality, that is last thing on their fucking minds and the US Labor Laws and paternity leave proves it. If you want to have a family, move to Norway, Sweden, Finland or Denmark.
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I pay 200 bucks for kindergarten in Norway, and most of it is tax refundable
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Hey that's fine, JD Vance says grandparents can take care of the kids!
Grandparents never have jobs themselves, right?
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And some grandparents are child molesters, or are abusive in other ways, who will never be allowed to see their grandchildren.
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Or dead, or too old to handle them, or don't live near you, or just don't want to be bothered. My parents are great, but they did tell me straight up that they wouldn't be a substitute for daycare. They do a lot but just don't want to be responsible like that, and I honestly don't blame them. They watch them whenever we need a babysitter or have to travel for events which is great. My wife's parents are dead.
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And people wonder why I don’t want to have kids.
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Sure is great how Manchin killed the childcare provision of BBB.
Centrists made this happen. Now tell us again how we're imagining not being able to afford to live.
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Good thing too, its not my responsibility to care for or support anyone else's crotch goblin bastards.
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A vasectomy is a hell of a deal.
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Oklahoma paid for mine for free. Thanks to Plan Parenthood.
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rip my balls off
All I could afford.
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All my coworkers by 1200 to 1600 in usd per per month per kid. This is unsustainable. Unless you have 2 people with no college debt making bank.
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Yep 10 years ago when my wife was the full time worker and I wanted to work. I would have to have been making $23 per hour to make a profit on working. The cheapest childcare we could find would have me paying childcare costs that exceeded a 40 hour per week check. I would have to pay to have a job. Best I could find at the time was $16.50 so I just elected to save money by not working.
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Nobody wants to work anymore! Nobody wants to have kids anymore!
Fuck me, I wonder why? Every inch of all of it sucks and costs too much.
People don't want to work so much because they want quality time with their kids. People don't want to work jobs that don't pay them enough to even have kids, let alone not have enough free time to actually build a life with those kids.
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Childcare? Y'all don't just leave your kids unsupervised at home?
/s Don't do that, but like thats reality tho. Some people do that.