In the United States, raising children is costly, and families are feeling the strain.
In the United States, more than 12.5 million children live in poverty. Even middle-class families are finding it difficult to meet their basic needs.
According to a research published by the United States Department of Agriculture based on 2015 statistics, the cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 in a middle-income family of two adults and two children is $233,610. With inflation, that amount will be about $286,000 in 2022.
However, controlling for inflation may not be sufficient…. The cost of child care has actually exceeded inflation. Child care costs increased 5.03 percent year over year in 2020, compared to a 1.2 percent annual inflation rate at the time.
“When it comes to these sorts of family policy, the United States has just been very reticent, very conservative,” said Shawn Fremstad, senior scholar at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“One of the problems with child care in the United States is that it’s a patchwork system,” said Lauren Bauer, a Brookings Institution economic research fellow. “For eligible children, we have programmes that are totally financed….” For higher-income families, we have tax credits that subsidise a portion of child care costs. States can also receive block funds to assist them extend access. The difficulty with all of these systems is that we’re nowhere near universality or affordability with this diversity of approaches.”
