The US and the High Cost of Child Care: 2018

The US and the High Cost of Child Care: A Review of Prices and Proposed Solutions for a Broken System

Child Care Aware^® of America’s interactive Cost of Child Care map allows you to actively engage and examine the cost and affordability of child care across states. This map shows the range in child care affordability for families with an infant in center-based child care. Please note: Affordability percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

New to this year’s map is county-level data for nine states: Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri and Nevada. We have also added updated printable fact sheets with child care cost and affordability data to each state.

Double click to view county-level data. For the best viewing experience, use a desktop browser. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge are supported.

Why is this important?

More than 11 million children younger than age five are in some form of child care in the United States. US and the High Cost of Child Care: A Review of Prices and Proposed Solutions for a Broken System  provides a brief review of child care as a sound return on investment and shares our policy recommendations for supporting families and child care providers. Also featured are:

• Brief case studies on regional costs in Maryland, California, and Louisiana;
• The importance of Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies and other similar organizations in connecting families to child care, supporting the child care workforce, as well as supporting adequately-funded state systems of support for child care;
• A blog post that provides an introduction to this report and the issue of the unaffordability of child care for all families; and,
• Educational and advocacy tools to help your state or community move the conversation about child care into action.

Get all of these valuable resources and more below!