Without Congressional action, prices would continue to rise- by more than 14 percent by 2025 as compared to pre-pandemic prices.Ĭhild care is essential for families to work and for family incomes to rise.

These rising prices squeeze families, crowd out other expenses, and push parents – especially mothers – out of the labor force.

The pandemic has accelerated these trends, with child care inflation exceeding annual inflation in 2020 by nearly 4 percent.

Over the past 30 years, child care prices have risen more than twice the rate of inflation – faster than the price of food, housing, and other items.

The cost of child care has been rising faster than inflation for years – and will continue to rise steeply absent public investment.

The Center for American Progress has developed a cost of child care calculator that estimates the real cost for providers meeting minimum licensing standards – these costs are often more than what parents are able to afford.

A new Wells Fargo report estimates that this leaves nearly half a million parents stranded without reliable care, contributing to the nation’s worker shortage.

Low wages for early educators are contributing to a child care shortage, with the industry still 4% below its pre-pandemic level.

Over half of providers rely on some form of public assistance.

Even as care is unaffordable for families, early educators are some of the lowest paid professionals in the United States paid, on average, $13.51 an hour.

Nationally, the average price of child care would take about 10 percent of the median household income for married households with children under 18, and over one-third of the median income of single parents – this is well above the 7 percent of household income that the Department of Health and Human Services recommends.Įven as parents struggle to afford child care, the cost is subsidized by the low wages of early educators:.

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In 3 out of 4 regions, the average price was more than what families pay for housing. New research from Child Care Aware of America finds that in 2020, the average price of center-based child care for an infant exceeded the annual cost of in-state tuition at a public four-year university in every region of the country.For families earning under 75 percent of their State Median Income (SMI), child care would be free, and 9 in 10 families would pay no more than 7 percent of their income toward child care.įamilies are struggling to afford child care -if they can find child care at all.Research from Center for American Progress shows that in 32 states, the investments in child care and pre-kindergarten proposed in the Build Back Better Act would lower child care costs for the typical family by more than $5,200 a year and investments in pre-K would save families an average of $8,600 a year.Transformative investments in child care and pre-kindergarten as a public good will reduce costs for families

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