Summary
Child care costs for many U.S. families during peak inflation in 2022 ranged from $6,552 to $15,600 per child, comparable to rent, according to Labor Department data.
These high costs strained household budgets, disproportionately impacted women’s workforce participation, and fueled economic dissatisfaction among voters.
While Kamala Harris proposed policies to reduce child care costs, Donald Trump capitalized on broader economic grievances to expand his voter base, despite offering few specifics on addressing the issue.
Pandemic-era federal aid helped stabilize costs but left parents bearing much of the financial burden.
I just picked a state. Average infant daycare cost is $1172/mo. Maximum of 4 infants per caregiver, so a maximum of $4.688.
Health insurance here averages $400/mo, for an individual (some often paid by the employer).
Assuming they are employed, the employer is paying for federal unemployment insurance, workers compensation insurance, state unemployment insurance. It was really hard to get solid numbers but based on my reading, we can estimate about 2% will go to that.
So we have $4296 left over. Assuming payroll and supplies and everything else costs nothing at all (which is definitely not accurate), and assuming we give the rest straight to the employee… Their gross would be $51,000 roughly.
The average daycare worker in this state makes about $33k/year.
The 4 to 1 ratio gets aged out of real quickly. In fact I am not sure we ever got that ratio with our daycare.
There’s tons and tons of federal and state funds for individual daycares, group centers etc. Some of it specifically to help boost payroll. Still doesn’t help because it gets eaten away by the bureaucracy.