01 · The price
A second rent, paid by parents.
Child care for one child as a share of median household income
Married couple
$13,128
That was the national average price of child care for one child in 2024. For a married couple, it takes about 10% of median income.
Child Care Aware of America, 2024 price analysis
35%
For a single parent, the same care eats about 35% of median income. That is more than a third of every paycheck before rent, food or anything else.
Child Care Aware of America, 2024
7%
The federal government defines affordable child care as 7% of household income. Department of Labor data show prices for one child run between 8.9% and 16% of median family income across the country.
U.S. Department of Labor, National Database of Childcare Prices, 2022 prices
More than the mortgage
In 45 states and D.C., center care for two children can cost more than a year of mortgage payments, in some cases by up to 78%.
Child Care Aware of America, 2024
What would your family pay?
Enter your household income and how many children are in care. The calculator uses the 2024 national average price, so your local price may be higher or lower.
02 · The deserts
For millions, there is no spot to pay for.
A child care desert is a neighborhood with no licensed child care at all, or more than three young children for every licensed slot.
Of every 100 children under age 6
The share swings wildly by state, from 5% in Washington, D.C. to 96% in Alaska. Rural families and parents who work nights and weekends are often left with no licensed option at all.
When care does not exist, parents cut hours, turn down jobs, or leave the workforce entirely.
Center for American Progress with the W.E. Upjohn Institute and Stanford University, 2025
03 · The workers
The people raising our kids can't afford to stay.
Parents pay a fortune, and the people doing the work still earn poverty-level wages. Child care runs on thin margins, so neither side of the market works.
Median annual pay, 2024
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2024 wages
BLS projects child care jobs will shrink 3% from 2024 to 2034, even as about 160,200 openings come up each year, mostly to replace workers who leave.
BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, child care workers
04 · The cost to all of us
When care fails, the whole economy pays.
Yearly cost of the infant and toddler child care crisis
ReadyNation, The Growing, Annual Cost of the Infant-Toddler Child Care Crisis, February 2023
Nearly two-thirds of parents of infants and toddlers who struggle with child care say they arrive late or leave work early. About a third switched to part-time work. Work disruptions alone cost families $78 billion a year in lost earnings and job searches.
ReadyNation survey of parents, 2023
05 · The money
Parents are stretched. Investors are not.
Public support is so thin that most families pay the full price themselves, while the biggest chains have become assets for global investment firms.
- Largest private U.S. provider of early childhood centers
- #1
- Owner since 2015: Partners Group, a Swiss private equity firm
- 71% stake
- Revenue, 2023
- $2.5 billion
- Net income, 2023
- $103 million
- Value at its October 2024 stock market debut
- $2.74 billion
- IPO proceeds earmarked to repay loans
- $548 million
The United States funds public child care at roughly one-fifth the Nordic level and leaves families to cover the rest. In that gap, care becomes a product, and profit competes with wages and quality for the same dollars.
People's Policy Project, The US-Nordic Childcare Gap, May 2026 · KinderCare IPO filings via Reuters, Bloomberg and Fast Company
The turn
Other countries treat it like school.
In much of the wealthy world, early care is a public service, like kindergarten or libraries. Families pay little or nothing, educators are paid as professionals, and every child has a place.
Public spending on child care and early education, share of GDP
OECD data via Quartz and OECD Education at a Glance 2024. Definitions vary by source, so figures are approximate.
Closer to home: Québec
Economists estimate the program lifted Québec's economy by about 1.7%, and that the taxes those working parents paid returned more than the program cost. Among mothers of young children, labor force participation rose from 66% to 79% between 1998 and 2014.
Fortin, Godbout and St-Cerny, 2012 · Fortin testimony to Canada's House of Commons
06 · The plan
Universal child care, built like public school.
The model already exists in Congress and in at least one American state. It needs leaders who will not be talked out of it.
- A guaranteed spot for every child, from infancy to kindergarten, wherever the family lives.
- Free or capped at 7% of income. No family pays more than the federal affordability benchmark, and lower-income families pay nothing.
- Educators paid like teachers, with wages, benefits and training on par with public school staff.
- Public investment in supply: new centers, home-based providers and night and weekend care, starting with child care deserts.
- Public money for care, not shareholders. Funding rules that put dollars into wages and quality.
In Congress
The Child Care for Working Families Act, reintroduced July 15, 2025 by Sen. Patty Murray and Reps. Bobby Scott and Katherine Clark, would cap costs at 7% of income, hold the typical family to $15 a day or less, raise educator pay, and expand pre-K and full-day Head Start.
House Education and Workforce Democrats, July 2025
In the states
On November 1, 2025, New Mexico became the first state to offer free child care regardless of income, dropping eligibility limits and waiving copays. The state estimates families save about $12,000 per child each year.
ABC News, September 2025 · New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department
07 · The return
The best investment a country can make.
His team followed children from two North Carolina programs into their mid-30s. The benefits showed up in health, earnings, education and crime, and in mothers who could go back to work. The return was higher than for programs that started at age 3 or 4.
García, Heckman, Leaf and Prados, The Lifecycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program, 2016. Results are from two programs and may not generalize to every setting.
08 · The mandate
Voters in both parties want this.
Believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families
UpOne Insight national poll for the First Five Years Fund, January 2026
Child care is one of the few issues where voters across the spectrum agree. What has been missing is leaders willing to fund it at the scale families need, instead of the scale donors will tolerate.