Thinking of having a child? Have you considered the expense? The USDA has helpfully just released a report looking at what it will cost, based on the child being born in 2009. NOT including college, the cost for the average middle-class couple to raise a child through age 17 is … hold onto your hat! … $286,050.
If your family income is more than $99,000 a year, the cost jumps to … wait for it … $475,680.
Remember: those totals do NOT include college.
The report also compared the cost of raising a kid born in 1960 to one today. It found that raising a child is 22% more expensive now.
Interestingly, though, a bigger portion of overall expenses was spent on clothing and food back then. The areas where today’s parents get hit harder are health care, which accounts for twice as much of total expenses now, and child care & education, which accounted for 2% of total expenses for a child born in 1960 but now accounts for 17%. This last part isn’t a big surprise since moms were more likely to stay home back in the 1960s so there were few child care expenses. I'm guessing more kids went to less expensive public schools back then, too.
If your son or daughter was born in 2009 and you spend the average $286,050 over the next 17 years on your child’s expenses, here’s the breakdown of what will be spent in each main category:
- Housing: 31% of total child expenses today (it was also 31% for a child born in 1960)
- Child care & education: 17% (2% in 1960)
- Food: 16% (24% in 1960)
- Transportation: 13% (16% in 1960)
- Miscellaneous: 9% (12% in 1960)
- Health care: 8% (4% in 1960)
- Clothing: 6% (11% in 1960)
One side note that caught my eye in a CBS News blog about the USDA report is an unrelated study that found job-hunting women with children (aka moms) were offered on average $11,000 a year less than similarly qualified women without children. The study also found that job-seeking men with children (aka fathers) were actually offered MORE on average than similarly qualified men without children. So employers penalize mothers and reward fathers. (You can check out that study here.)
To read a San Francisco Chronicle blog post on the study, click here.
