Working Families Are Spending Big Money on Child Care

American families are struggling with the costs of child care—a key element in the ever-rising expenses associated with middle-class opportunity. Quality, affordable child care allows parents who want to work to stay in the labor force, encourages the healthy development of young children, and supports families at a stage in their lives during which small investments return large social dividends.¹Absent large-scale policy action on this issue, young adults have reported child care expenses as the top reason they are having fewer children than they would like.²In fact, in 2018, the U.S. fertility rate fell to a record low for the third straight year, falling below the replacement rate needed to keep the population constant from one generation to the next.³

For those who do have young children, parenthood in the United States can feel like a relentless series of financial challenges. Over the past two decades, middle-class wages have barely kept pace with the rate of inflation, while the costs of securing a family in the middle class—including the necessary costs of housing, education, health care, and child care—have risen considerably.⁴During this same time, income inequality has escalated, with wealth and incomes for the top 1 percent and the upper middle class pulling away from the rest of Americans.⁵

Under the current policies, most parents must cover the full cost of child care on their own, an expense that few can afford. Even low-income families—whose children likely qualify for child care assistance—are often forced to pay for child care, since fewer than 1 in 6 subsidy-eligible children receives assistance.⁶Meanwhile, to the extent that child care is affordable for parents at all, this is only because the child care workforce effectively subsidizes child care costs with low worker wages. The typical U.S. child care worker earns just $11 per hour.⁷

View the complete June 20 article by Rasheed Malik on the Center for American Progress website here.