In Omaha, a family with a baby and a preschooler in daycare pays about $2,891 a month for center-based care. Rent on a two-bedroom apartment in that same city runs $1,368 a month. The child care bill is more than double the rent, and Omaha is not an outlier. Milwaukee and Buffalo look almost the same.
This is what parents mean when they say child care has become unaffordable. It is not a complaint about the price of preschool. It is a second housing payment, sometimes bigger than the first, due every month whether or not you can spare it.
Nationally, the average family now spends a fifth of its income on child care. That is nearly three times what the federal government considers affordable. One in five families spends more than $30,000 a year on care, and close to a third are pulling money out of savings just to keep a spot at daycare.
Parents are not bad at budgeting. Child care prices have been rising faster than almost everything else for years, and help from the government and the tax code has not kept pace.
The average family spends a fifth of its income on child care
A survey of 3,000 parents released this year found the average family spends 20% of household income on child care in a given year. That is nearly three times what the government considers affordable, which caps a reasonable child care bill at 7% of income for families receiving federal help.
One in five families spends more than $30,000 a year on child care. Almost a third, 31%, are pulling money out of savings to cover it, and 78% spend at least a tenth of what they earn on care. None of that counts what the same parents pay for other care they are juggling at the same time: aging parents, pets, or a housekeeper to keep the house running while they are at work.
A tenth of your income on child care would already strain most budgets. A fifth is close to a second rent payment. And unlike rent, the bill does not shrink once your kids get older. It just turns into a different bill: after-school programs, summer camp, activities that used to be optional and now feel necessary just to have somewhere for a child to be while you work.
In dozens of cities, child care already costs more than rent
Nationally, full-time infant care runs about $1,282 a month, a little less than the average two-bedroom rent of $1,716. Add a second child, a preschooler alongside the baby, and the numbers flip. Care for two kids costs more than rent in 85 of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas.
Child care outpaces rent by the widest margin in the Midwest and Northeast. In Omaha, care for an infant and a 4-year-old runs 111% more than local rent. Milwaukee and Buffalo are close behind, both well over double. Springfield, Massachusetts, and Syracuse, New York, round out the top five, with child care bills at least as high as rent and sometimes double.
It works the other way in a handful of expensive coastal metros. In San Jose, San Francisco, and San Diego, rent is so high that child care costs less than housing by a wide margin, even though care itself is not cheap there either. Six of the ten cheapest-by-comparison metros are in California, the rest in Florida.
Wherever you live, the honest way to plan is to price out child care the same way you would price out rent: as a fixed cost you budget for before anything else, not something you figure out once the baby arrives.
Single parents are absorbing far more of this than anyone else
The average price of child care nationally is $13,184 a year. For a married couple earning their state’s median income, that works out to about 10% of what they bring home. For a single parent earning the median income for a one-parent household, the same bill eats 33% of their income, more than three times the federal affordability benchmark and well over triple what two-parent households pay as a share of income.
It means a single parent making a typical income for their household type spends a third of every paycheck on care for one child, before rent, food, or anything else, just to keep working. Federal financial assistance exists to close some of that distance, but it reaches far fewer people than need it. Only about 15% of children who qualify for a subsidy under federal rules actually receive one, because funding runs out long before eligibility does.
If you are a single parent weighing whether working still pays once child care comes out of your check, you are not being dramatic. For a lot of households, the number does not work without help from family, a flexible schedule, or a subsidy that may or may not come through.
What is actually pushing prices this high
Child care prices rose 29% between 2020 and 2024, while prices for everything else rose 22% over the same stretch. That did not come out of nowhere. A survey of child care providers last year found 68% saw their liability insurance costs rise, up from 46% the year before, and 66% saw property insurance jump, up from 45%. Rent or lease costs increased for 44% of providers, and most reported climbing costs for food, supplies, and wages on top of that, all while public funding for the sector went down.
Centers cannot absorb those costs the way a lot of businesses can. Staff-to-child ratios for infants are capped by law, often at one adult for every three or four babies, so a center cannot cut payroll to lower prices without breaking the law or cutting corners on safety. When costs rise, providers are left with two options: eat the loss and risk closing, or raise tuition. Most chose tuition. 65% of child care centers raised prices last year, and public school based programs were not far behind.
A solution that focuses only on parents, better budgeting, an extra side hustle, a bigger tax credit, only goes so far. Providers are being squeezed from the other direction at the same time.
How the government’s child care subsidy actually works
Every state and territory runs some version of a child care subsidy, funded through a federal program called the Child Care and Development Fund. Eligibility, income limits, and how much of your bill gets covered are all set at the state level, so what qualifies a family in Texas looks nothing like what qualifies a family in Massachusetts. What stays the same everywhere is the shape of it: a sliding scale, based on income, that lowers your weekly bill instead of eliminating it, paid directly to a provider on your behalf.
The fastest way to find your state’s version is through your state’s child care financial assistance page, which links out to the actual application for wherever you live. Head Start and Early Head Start are separate programs worth checking too. They serve income-eligible families with children from birth through age five, often at no cost, though they work more like a preschool program than a subsidy you apply toward private daycare.
Waitlists are common in most states, and being eligible does not guarantee a spot opens up quickly. Apply anyway. A slot that opens in three months is still better than one you never got in line for, and many states let you keep your place while you look at other options in the meantime.
Two tax breaks got noticeably bigger this year
Two federal tax benefits for child care got more generous starting with the 2026 tax year, both from a law passed last year. The dependent care flexible spending account limit rose to $7,500 per household, up from $5,000, the first increase since 1986. If your employer offers one and has updated its plan to allow the new limit, you can set aside that much pre-tax money for care, which lowers both your income tax and your payroll tax.
The Child and Dependent Care Credit also got bigger. The top credit rate climbed to 50% of eligible expenses for lower earners, up from 35%, though the expense caps you can claim against did not move. It is still $3,000 for one child and $6,000 for two or more. The credit phases down as income rises and cannot reduce your tax bill below zero, so it helps most if you owe federal tax and earn on the lower end of the income scale.
You generally cannot double dip on the same dollars. Money you run through a dependent care FSA reduces the expenses left over to claim for the credit, so which one saves you more depends on your income and how many kids you are paying for care. It is worth running both numbers before assuming your employer’s FSA is automatically the better deal.
Bottom line
The typical two-child family earns about $145,656 a year and spends roughly $28,190 of it on care for a baby and a 4-year-old. Hitting the government’s own 7% affordability standard would take a household income over $400,000, which tells you plainly that the rules were written for a country that no longer exists.
