By Hank Russell
Despite the announcements by Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that universal pre-K will be offered to children in New York City, other parents outside that region — especially single parents — are struggling to pay for daycare, a new study finds.
According to WalletHub, New York parents spend the third-highest percentage of income on child care expenses, behind Nebraska and California. Mississippi parents spent the least.
Married couples who pay for family-based child care — that is, child care in a private home — spend 10.93% on their incomes on this service, based on WalletHub data. That is also the third-highest behind Oregon (11.03%) and New Mexico (11.03%). Couples in South Dakota pay the lowest percentage of their income at 5.62%.
Married couples in New York paid more for child care based in centers, WalletHub said, spending 12.95% of their incomes. That is the sixth-highest amount, behind Hawaii (13.87%), California (13.62%), Nebraska (13.58%), Illinois (13.24%) and Massachusetts (31.02%). Mississippi married couples pay only 5.67% of their income — the nation’s lowest.
Single parents in New York, meanwhile, are struggling to pay for daycare. WalletHub found that they pay the third-highest percentage of their income on child care, behind the District of Columbia and Massachusetts. Single parents in South Dakota paid the lowest percentage of income, according to the study.
WalletHub also found that single parents use more than three times their incomes as married couples when in comes to paying for daycare. They use 38.42% of their incomes on family-based child care, the second-highest behind the District of Columbia (51.16%), and 45.51% of their incomes on center-based child care; that is the fourth-highest behind the District of Columbia (58.72%), Massachusetts (50.01%) and Illinois (45.85%). When it comes to which states pay the lowest, South Dakota single parents pay 17.32% of their incomes on private child care and single parents in Alaska pay 21.42% on center-based child care.
According to WalletHub, New York has the 11th-highest median income for married couples, at $145,321, but only the 24th-highest median income for single parents, at $41,337. “This helps explain why the burden on single parents is more than twice as high,” the report said.
The study also cited data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which noted that 66.3% of families with children have both parents employed, making child care a necessity, despite the cost.
“It costs a lot of money to take care of a child’s needs, and many parents are left with the dilemma of whether to forgo one salary to do their own child care for the first few years or to shell out a significant chunk of their income for child care services,” said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo. “Married parents who both work can expect to spend as much as 14% of what they earn on child care, while single parents’ costs can amount to an astounding 59%.”