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While parents may intuitively know that child care is expensive, many might not realize the costs vary by a lot across the U.S. Due to the pandemic, this past year has been particularly difficult for so many families as they navigated the multiple challenges of working and providing child care, as well as dealing with online schooling. As daycares closed and forced parents — particularly mothers and people of color — to quit and leave the workforce, it’s been a struggle to cobble together child care for families who cannot work from home.
Now that the world is opening up again for many of us, returning to the office is on the horizon and daycares are ramping up reopenings, too. According to a map based on data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the average cost of child care is still shockingly high in America.
Even prior to the pandemic, the U.S. patchwork of child care and daycares was severely broken. According to the Center for American Progress, the true cost of child care rivals the cost of college in many states and forces many families to make difficult decisions in terms of quality, safety, and reliability. Though the Biden Administration recently signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 Relief Bill in March 2021, it’s not enough. The package sets aside funds for child care programs to stay open or reopen, and is supposed to help some parents return to work.
So, how much does daycare cost where you live? Read on for information on how much of your income you can expect to spend and how your state compares to others in terms of costs.
Average daycare costs by state
This chart on MoveOn.org, reflecting 2021 data, can be a good starting point to find out the average costs in your state.
Remember that infant child care will cost more than daycare for older children because the amount of labor required to care for babies is much more. On average, child care for infants is about 17.1% of the national median household income and clocks in at $216 a week. Across the U.S., infant care can take from 10.9% of household income (South Dakota) to 26.3% (Washington, D.C.).
If you’re looking at daycare costs for older kids like 4-year-olds, then that is slightly less expensive at $175 a week and is 13.9% of the national median household income. But even on the lower end of the spectrum, the cost consumes a good portion of income.
Please note that the numbers used are from Move.org and they used infant care data to calculate the percentage of income rankings. For the dollar amounts of child care, they used the average price of both infant and 4-year-old child care.
Entrepreneur and blogger Ashleigh Evans just started her 3-year-old son in daycare a month ago. “With my husband working from home full time now and me being gone more, it was necessary!” the Michigan based mom told Mom.com. “We pay $125 a week for 3 days.”
Also, before you start your search for a facility or send your child back to daycare, make sure that your child care provider is following the guidelines set out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Most expensive daycare
According to Move.org’s data analysis, the most expensive state for child care is Washington, D.C., where infant care costs approximately $21,678 a year and is about 26% of the state’s median household income. The second most expensive state is Massachusetts ($18,004, 24%), followed by Indiana ($14,210, 21.9%).
Interestingly enough, several of the most expensive states (New York: $14,116, 21.3%; California: $13,876, 21.1%; and Illinois: $12,795, 19.9%) for daycare in America are also the most populous states of the Union. In addition, other than California, almost all of the most expensive states for child care are either in the Midwest or the East.
Working California mother of two, K.E. concurred that the cost of childcare in California is extremely high. “I think we have one of the cheaper options in the area and we pay $360 a week per kid,” she told Mom.com. “The cost includes meals but doesn’t include diapers or wipes.”
Most affordable daycare
As for the states with the most affordable daycares, six of the ten are found in the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and South Carolina). South Dakota was the least expensive state where infant care costs approximately $6,430 a year and is about 10.9% of the state’s median household income. The second most affordable state is Alabama ($5,593, 11.6%), followed by Mississippi ($5,110, 11.9%).
While that may be infuriating and cause you to immediately start looking for listings there, keep in mind that the cheapest childcare isn’t necessarily the best — and to consider other elements of what you consider the best quality of life.
