According to recent Department of Labor data, many families have been essentially paying a second rent check to send their children to day care.
Although it is well known that child care prices have severely strained households nationwide, the federal data demonstrates how sharply these costs increased from county to county during the greatest inflation in four decades. In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, families’ average spending for full-day care for each child ranged from $6,552 to as high as $15,600.
According to the organization, the maximum level is several hundred dollars higher than the typical yearly rent for that year. Although incomes vary greatly across the nation, households generally spend between 9% and 16% of their yearly income on day care for each child.
Many households just cannot afford these expenses.
Gretchen Livingston, Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor
Gretchen Livingston, the branch chief for quantitative research at the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau, which carried out the study, stated that these expenses are just unaffordable for a great number of families.
The results provide an overview of one of the most significant financial strains Americans had in the run-up to the 2024 election, which was fueled in part by voters’ price fatigue, which even a strong economy can’t seem to alleviate. Although child care expenses contribute to the explanation of Americans’ economic discontent, an NBC News examination of Labor Department and election outcome data also suggests the issue’s political boundaries.
Nearly 90% of counties around the US saw President-elect Donald Trump increase his vote share since 2020; NBC News reported that the median vote shift across counties was 3.2 percentage points. In 2022, the most restrictive child care markets voted for Trump by larger margins than the national average, although many of the more affordable child care locations also did so.
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