Introduction Child care is still expensive.
For millions of American families with young children, child care is part of their daily routine. Working parents rely on child care to work to support their families and, more importantly, to ensure that their children are well-cared for in safe environments. Quality child care– care that provides a safe, stable, developmentally appropriate and stimulating environment – both protects children and promotes their healthy development. This increases the likelihood that children enter school ready to succeed.
The 2008 average annual price of full-time care for an infant in a center ranged from $4,560 in Mississippi to an astonishing $15,895 in Massachusetts (Detail Table 1). These fees comprise a large portion of household incomes. To better understand the impact of child care costs, NACCRRA compared the average price of full-time care for an infant, a 4-year-old child and a school-age child in a center with the state median income for two-parent families and for single parents. The average cost of care was calculated as a percentage of median income (American Community Survey 2007, U.S. Census Bureau) and the states were ranked from least affordable to most affordable. This does not mean that the least affordable state had the most expensive child care. Instead, the least affordable state had the highest child care cost as compared to the state median income of two-parent families.
Although child care is a necessity, it’s also very expensive. In a national telephone poll of parents conducted in November 2008,3 9 in 10 parents cited affordable child care as an important factor in helping working families survive in today’s tumultuous economy, yet child care continues to be unaffordable, or barely affordable, for many families. Parents and the High Price of Child Care: 2009 Update presents 2008 data on child care prices collected from a nationwide survey of State Child Care Resource and Referral Networks and local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies (CCR&Rs). In January 2009, NACCRRA asked State Networks in each state to report average annual fees for centerbased child care and for family child care homes for an infant, a 4-year-old child, and a school-age child in 2008. This report presents the information collected in that survey.
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In New York, the least affordable state for infant care in a center, this cost was as much as 16.2 percent of the median household income for a twoparent family (Table 1 and Detail Table 2 for listing of all states). Single parents faced a larger dilemma: how to pay for child care for their infants in a center where costs could make up 50 percent or more of their household income. In 2008, 126.8 million Americans in 14 states and the District of Columbia, confronted average prices for center-based infant care exceeding $10,000 a year (U.S. Census, July 2008 Population Estimates).
National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies. (2009). Parents’ Perceptions of Child Care in the United States: NACCRRA’s National Parent Poll: November 2008. Retrieved February 8, 2009 from www.naccrra.org/policy/recent_reports/parent_poll.php
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