Data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that a median-income family in every state exceeds the 7% childcare affordability threshold by 2 to 6 percentage points. For minimum-wage workers, the burden is even more severe—ranging from 29 to 108 percentage points.
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the EPI, began noticing a troubling shift in the data a decade ago.
“All of a sudden, childcare became more expensive than housing in a number of counties across the country,” she says. “It really surprised us.”
Today, her research shows that infant care costs more than in-state college tuition in 29 states and the District of Columbia.
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In a cruel twist, Gould notes that childcare workers are often the most acutely burdened by the crisis they help manage.
“Childcare workers are the ones that are doing this valuable work to take care of our children, and they themselves are paid such low wages, and they’re undervalued for that work, that they can’t afford childcare themselves,” she says.