Current Events > USDA: Raising a middle-class child will likely cost almost $286,000 in 2022

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https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/08/childcare-social-safety-net-policy.html

Raising children is expensive in the United States, and families are feeling the pressure. More than 12.5 million children in the U.S. live in poverty. Even middle-class families are increasingly struggling to pay for everyday expenses. The U.S. Department of Agriculture published a report using 2015 data that estimated expenses of child rearing from birth through age 17 in a middle-income family of two adults and two children is $233,610. With inflation, that number translates to almost $286,000 in 2022. But adjusting for inflation may not be enough. Child care costs have actually outpaced inflation. In 2020, child care expenses rose 5.03% year over year compared to the annual inflation rate of just 1.2% at the time. The fact is that sending an infant to day care in many places across the country could be significantly more expensive than in-state public tuition to send them to college, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

The United States has just been very reluctant, very conservative, when it comes to these kinds of family policies, said Shawn Fremstad, senior fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. One of the issues with child care in the U.S. is its a patchwork system, said Lauren Bauer, an economic studies fellow at Brookings Institution. We have programs that fully subsidized for eligible children. ... We have tax credits that subsidize a portion of child care costs for higher-income families. We also have block grants to states to help them expand access. The problem with all of these systems is that, with this multitude of approaches, were not getting close to universality or affordability.

After taxes, I'm not sure I've made $230K in my life and I've been employed consistently for nearing on a decade <_<

so around 7k a year per kid

assuming you kick them out of the house at 17

yeah sounds about right.

will never understand the appeal of having a kid

Wholly depends on where you live.

my wife and I live in one of the highest taxed and more expensive states and we pay $700 a month for 3 half days of school for our daughter.

Children now a luxury of upper management.

Unless you go on welfare. Guess who complains about people on welfare?

PatrickMahomes posted...

will never understand the appeal of having a kid

This. Even if I were capable of reproduction I wouldn't.

_BlueMonk posted...

so around 7k a year per kid

assuming you kick them out of the house at 17

yeah sounds about right.

And each dependent you get back 3k I think.

Why did I read usda as us dairy administration

chrono625 posted...

Wholly depends on where you live.

my wife and I live in one of the highest taxed and more expensive states and we pay $700 a month for 3 half days of school for our daughter.

That would come out to $7000 a year?

_BlueMonk posted...

so around 7k a year per kid

assuming you kick them out of the house at 17

yeah sounds about right.

Idk where blue got that number though

So more than it costs to reach max level in that new Diablo game.

WingsOfGood posted...

Idk where blue got that number though

oops, i read that as 230k

so around 8400 a year then.

Pretty sure the estimate used to be like 400k or something similar wasnt it?

Daycare for 2 kids costs me about $36,000 per year.