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    Child care

    Child care: Care that lets parents work and children thrive.

    For a single parent, the average price of child care is 33% of income. Good care lets parents work and changes children's lives, and the best programs have paid back many times over.

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    Ryan K. Hertel · heyitskenton

    The problem

    What we're up against.

    • A price many can't pay.

      The average price of child care in America was $13,184 in 2025, about 10% of a married couple's median income and 33% of a single parent's.

    • Not enough places.

      About 4.2 million children who need care have no place within reach, a gap of 28%.

    • The people who do the work.

      Early childhood educators earn a median $13.07 an hour, less than 97% of all other occupations.

    What works

    Proven, and ready to grow.

    • Early education pays off for years.

      Across rigorous studies, early childhood education led to fewer children placed in special education, and raised high school graduation by 11.4 percentage points.

    • The famous trials.

      Full-time care from infancy in the Abecedarian trial returned an estimated 13.7% a year: about $7.30 in benefits for every dollar spent.

    • Head Start, in the long run.

      As Head Start first spread across America's counties, children who could attend went on to 0.65 more years of schooling, on average.

    • Help that lets mothers work.

      More spending on child care subsidies significantly raises work and employment among mothers on low incomes.

    • Pay that keeps teachers.

      In a randomized trial in Virginia, a $1,500 bonus halved turnover among child care teachers, from 30% to 15%.

    What a family could fund

    Where the money goes furthest.

    • Most eligible children go without help.

      Only 16% of children eligible for federal child care help got it in 2022: 1.8 million children.

    • A benchmark per child.

      Head Start's federal funding works out to about $16,400 per child a year, our arithmetic from its own figures.

    • Better pay for educators.

      Washington, D.C.'s pay fund for early educators costs about $54 million a year and returns about $1.23 for every dollar, and it added 219 educators in its first two years.

    • Care for night and weekend shifts.

      More than a third of young children need care outside standard hours, and home-based providers are more likely than centers to offer it.

    Honest limits

    What money can't promise.

    • Help can raise prices.

      With a federal child care tax credit, over half of every dollar went to providers as higher prices and wages.

    • Gains can fade.

      In the national Head Start trial, very few effects remained by the end of third grade.

    • Some programs do harm.

      In a randomized trial of Tennessee's state pre-K, children who attended scored lower in third to sixth grade than those who didn't.

    • Quality decides.

      In Quebec, children with more access to low-cost care later had worse health, lower life satisfaction and more crime.

    • The famous studies are small and old.

      The Abecedarian trial needed special statistics for its small samples, and the Perry Preschool trial's randomization was compromised.

    Hard questions

    Asked and answered.

    1. You might ask

      Won't subsidies just push prices up?

      Ryan

      They can when places are scarce: with a federal tax credit, over half of every dollar went to higher prices and wages. That's why the plan pays for new places and better pay, not only seats.

    2. You might ask

      Does child care change a child's life, or just let parents work?

      Ryan

      Both, when it's good: high-quality care consistently helps children, and the evidence on care of any quality is mixed. Child care help also lets mothers work.

    3. You might ask

      Isn't this the government's job?

      Ryan

      Public help reaches a minority: 16% of eligible children in 2022. And Head Start's money already goes mostly to local organizations, the kind a family's initiative could back too.

    In the slider

    See what your fortune could do here.

    Child care

    The slider prices this cause with these numbers:

    • About $13,184 a year, the average price of child care in America.
    • The whole need here, at most: a child for every single-mother family, 7.7 million.
    • That includes families whose children are already in school, so it overstates the need.
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    More of the Blueprint

    Keep reading.

    23 more chapters on the way

    Back to Keep 100

    Sources

    Every number in this chapter, and where it came from.

    1. Source 1: Limited Supply, High Prices: Gaps Still Remain in Meeting Families' Child Care Needs (opens in a new tab)

      Child Care Aware of America, 27 May 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

    2. Source 2: Quantifying the Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early-Childhood Program (Garcia, Heckman, Leaf and Prados) (opens in a new tab)

      Journal of Political Economy, July 2020. Checked 16 October 2026.

      The Abecedarian and CARE randomized trials of full-time care from infancy, followed into adulthood.

    3. Source 3: Child Care in America: 2025 Price & Supply (opens in a new tab)

      Child Care Aware of America, May 2026. Checked 15 October 2026.

      The national average price for infants and four-year-olds, in centers and family child care homes.

    4. Source 4: New Interactive Map Reveals 4.2 Million Children Nationwide Lack Access to Child Care (opens in a new tab)

      Buffett Early Childhood Institute, University of Nebraska, 9 September 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

      With Child Care Aware of America and the Bipartisan Policy Center; it maps places against need by distance.

    5. Source 5: State-by-State Analysis Shows Child Care Workforce in Dire Straits (opens in a new tab)

      University of California, Berkeley, 10 October 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

      From the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment's Workforce Index, using 2022 wage data.

    6. Source 6: Impacts of Early Childhood Education on Medium- and Long-Term Educational Outcomes (McCoy, Yoshikawa and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Educational Researcher, November 2017. Checked 16 October 2026.

      A meta-analysis of 22 experimental and quasi-experimental studies from 1960 to 2016.

    7. Source 7: Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impacts of Head Start on Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency (Bailey, Sun and Timpe) (opens in a new tab)

      American Economic Review, December 2021. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Uses Head Start's rollout across counties from 1965 to 1980.

    8. Source 8: The Effects of Child Care Subsidies on Maternal Labor Force Participation in the United States (opens in a new tab)

      US Department of Health and Human Services (ASPE). Checked 16 October 2026.

      An Urban Institute study of 2003 to 2012.

    9. Source 9: How can we improve early childhood education? Use public dollars to pay teachers more (Bassok and Doromal) (opens in a new tab)

      Brookings, 5 January 2022. Checked 16 October 2026.

      The trial's authors summarizing a randomized study in Virginia. The bonus had no effect in school-based programs.

    10. Source 10: Estimates of Child Care Subsidy Eligibility & Receipt for Fiscal Year 2022 (opens in a new tab)

      US Department of Health and Human Services (ASPE), 27 July 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

    11. Source 11: Head Start Program Facts: Fiscal Year 2024 (opens in a new tab)

      Office of Head Start, 14 August 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

    12. Source 12: Washington, DC's Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund: Benefits, Costs, and Economic Returns (opens in a new tab)

      Mathematica, 19 November 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

    13. Source 13: Jobs in the Balance: The Two-Year Labor Market Impacts of Washington, DC's Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund (opens in a new tab)

      Mathematica, 28 May 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

    14. Source 14: Understanding Families' Access to Nontraditional Hour Child Care and Early Education (opens in a new tab)

      US Administration for Children and Families (OPRE), 4 September 2023. Checked 16 October 2026.

    15. Source 15: Give credit where? The incidence of child care tax credits (Rodgers) (opens in a new tab)

      Journal of Urban Economics, 2018. Checked 16 October 2026.

    16. Source 16: Third Grade Follow-up to the Head Start Impact Study: Final Report (opens in a new tab)

      US Administration for Children and Families (OPRE), 21 December 2012. Checked 16 October 2026.

      A national randomized trial with nearly 5,000 children.

    17. Source 17: Effects of a statewide pre-kindergarten program on children's achievement and behavior through sixth grade (Durkin, Lipsey, Farran and Wiesen) (opens in a new tab)

      Developmental Psychology, March 2022. Checked 16 October 2026.

      A randomized trial of Tennessee's state pre-K program.

    18. Source 18: The Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (Baker, Gruber and Milligan) (opens in a new tab)

      American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2019. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Quebec's low-cost universal child care, compared with the rest of Canada.

    19. Source 19: Early childhood investments substantially boost adult health (Campbell, Conti, Heckman and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Science, March 2014. Checked 16 October 2026.

    20. Source 20: The Rate of Return to the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program (Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev and Yavitz) (opens in a new tab)

      Journal of Public Economics, February 2010. Checked 16 October 2026.

    21. Source 21: Do children benefit from universal early childhood education and care? A meta-analysis of evidence from natural experiments (van Huizen and Plantenga) (opens in a new tab)

      Economics of Education Review, 2018. Checked 16 October 2026.

    22. Source 22: Families with own children under 18, mother only (Current Population Survey) (opens in a new tab)

      US Census Bureau, via FRED, December 2025. Checked 15 October 2026.

      In thousands, for 2025.