Parent trap
No one ever said that raising kids was a walk in the park, but American parents appear to be under more financial pressure than usual as inflation and rising childcare costs continue to bite, with less than two-thirds of American parents saying they’re doing “at least okay” financially according to the Fed’s latest Economic Well-Being of US Households report.
The latest survey painted a reasonably rosy picture of Americans' finances, with the summary concluding that “people’s overall financial well-being was nearly unchanged from the previous year”. That was despite inflation, the omnipresent economic elephant in the room, which had reportedly made 65% of US adults' financial situation “worse” in the last year and weighed heavy on parents. Indeed, 75% of adults who don’t have under 18s living at home reported that they were financially okay in 2023, while just 64% of parents said the same.
Some are declaring a cost of parenting crisis in the US, after childcare fees in America soared to become “untenable for families across all care types, age groups, and county population sizes”, per a 2023 report from the Women’s Bureau within the Department of Labor. Indeed, the cost of day care and preschool has outstripped overall inflation for over a year now, and some estimates put the average price of enrolling a child in a licensed day care as high as ~$17K a year.
