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
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.
