Is Daycare Too Expensive?

What do you think? Is daycare too expensive?

It’s no secret that childcare is incredibly expensive in this country. Often, prohibitively so, when it comes to a mother deciding whether to return to work after having a baby. Some new statistics released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) highlight just how difficult it is for a family to afford childcare, often resulting in women becoming stay-at-home moms as a default. If daycare is so expensive that it’s cheaper for a parent to stop working, it’s obvious that this is a problem that needs solutions.

According to the EPI’s findings, the below factors make good-quality childcare merely a pipe dream for thousands of families:

• In 33 states and the District of Columbia, infant care costs exceed the average cost of in-state college tuition at public 4-year institutions.
• Among families with two children (a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old), child care costs exceed rent in 500 out of 618 family budget areas. For two-child families, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York.
• As a share of total family budgets, center-based child care for single-parent families with two children (ages 4 and 8) ranges from 11.7 percent in New Orleans to 33.7 percent in Buffalo, New York.

These numbers are pretty scary to consider and only the tip of the iceberg as far as all the comparisons one could make about what these costs mean for American families. For childcare to be more than three times the rent anywhere is simply unacceptable. Sadly, it’s also not surprising to any parent who has done the numbers and tried to work out a budget that includes childcare in a two-income household. So many families find it makes no financial sense for one parent, typically the mother, to go back to work.

You can check out the rest of this article on Scary Mommy. When you're finished, leave a comment and weigh in.