What share of families pay more than 7% of income for child care?

In this study's simulation of 10,000 families with a young child in paid care, 95.3 percent pay more than 7 percent of their income, and the median family pays 24.0 percent, or $21,112 a year, which is 3.4 times the 7 percent line. The median bill for one child is $12,584, for two children $26,780, and for three $40,976.

How was the child care burden study run?

10,000 simulated families, with a fixed seed (20261102) so the result is reproducible. Income is drawn from a lognormal distribution with a median of $87,460, the Census Bureau's median household income for 2025. Children, ages, and care types are drawn from stated shares, and weekly rates are Child Care Aware of America's 2024 state averages, with the nanny at Care.com's 2026 posted rate of $870 a week. Every family is priced full-time, 52 weeks, through this site's calculator formula.

What is the 7% child care affordability benchmark?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' long-standing benchmark that child care should cost no more than 7 percent of family income. On the $87,460 median household income, that is $6,122 a year, or $510 a month. One infant in full-time center care costs $15,600 a year, which is 17.8 percent of the median income, or $9,478 over the line.

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The nursery ledger · Table No. 45 · Fifth weekly data study

The Child Care Burden: 10,000 Families, One 7% Line

We ran 10,000 simulated families through our own child care calculator, on the Census median income and the national benchmark rates, and asked one question: how many pay more than the 7 percent of income that the government calls affordable? The answer is 95.3 percent, and the median family pays 24.0 percent, which is 3.4 times the line.

Filed November 2, 2026 · 10,000 scenarios · seed 20261102 · figures checked against 2026 sources

The question, and the method

The question is what share of American families pay more than the 7 percent of income that the Department of Health and Human Services calls affordable for child care, and by how much. The method is a simulation, run through this site's own calculator engine: 10,000 families, drawn with a fixed seed (20261102) so the result is reproducible. Household income is drawn from a lognormal distribution with a median of $87,460, the Census Bureau's median household income for 2025, and a spread of 0.55, which reproduces the shape of the American income distribution. The number of children in care is one for 55 percent of families, two for 32 percent, and three for 13 percent. Each child's age is infant for 30 percent, toddler for 30 percent, and preschool for 40 percent. The care type is a center for 55 percent, a licensed home daycare for 30 percent, and a nanny for 15 percent. The weekly rates are Child Care Aware of America's 2024 state averages, center $300 for an infant, $273 for a toddler, $242 for a 4-year-old, and home $220, $206, and $200, with the nanny at Care.com's 2026 posted rate of $870 a week for every age. Every family is priced full-time, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, with no extra fees, and the annual bill is the weekly rate times 52, summed across the children, which is exactly the formula the calculator on this site runs.

The simulation is a model, and its limits are worth stating plainly. It prices every family at the national benchmark rates, not at state prices, so it understates the burden in Massachusetts and overstates it in Mississippi. It prices every family full-time, so it understates the burden for no family and overstates it for the families that use part-time care. It counts no tax saving, no sibling discount, and no subsidy, so it states the gross bill, not the net one, and the net bill is lower by up to $2,224 for a household with an FSA. It draws the care type independently of the income, so it puts nannies in low-income households that could not afford them, which pushes the top of the distribution higher than the real market. The median is the number to trust, because the median is set by the center and home families who dominate the sample, and the top tail is the number to read with the limits in mind, because the top tail is set by the nanny families the model places anywhere. The result is a picture of the burden, not a census of it, and the picture is stark enough without overstating it.

The headline numbers

Measure	Result
Median annual bill	$21,112
Median share of income	24.0%
10th percentile share	9.0%
90th percentile share	74.5%
Mean share of income	37.1%
Families over the 7% line	95.3%
Families over 20% of income	58.4%
Families over 25% of income	48.1%
Families over 30% of income	39.4%
Families over 50% of income	20.1%
Median annual bill, 1 child	$12,584
Median annual bill, 2 children	$26,780
Median annual bill, 3 children	$40,976

The median family in the simulation pays $21,112 a year for child care, which is 24.0 percent of its income, and which is 3.4 times the 7 percent line. The median is higher than the national average of $13,184 a year, because the median family in the simulation has more than one child in care often enough to lift it: 45 percent of the simulated families have two or three children, and the median bill for one child is $12,584, which is close to the national average, while the median for two is $26,780 and for three is $40,976, which is 46.9 percent of the median income for three children alone. The 10th percentile family pays 9.0 percent of its income, which is the only decile near the line, and the 90th percentile pays 74.5 percent, which is the tail where the nanny and the low income meet, and which is the number to read with the model's limits in mind. The mean share is 37.1 percent, which is higher than the median because the tail pulls it up, and which is the reason the median is the headline and the mean is the footnote.

The share over the line is the number that should stop a reader. Ninety-five point three percent of the simulated families pay more than 7 percent of their income for child care, which means the affordability line is not a line that some families cross. It is a line that almost every family with a young child in paid care crosses, and the typical crossing is not small: 58.4 percent pay more than 20 percent of their income, which is the average that parents surveyed by Care.com reported, and 48.1 percent pay more than a quarter, and 39.4 percent pay more than 30 percent, and 20.1 percent pay more than half. The 7 percent benchmark is not a goal that the market is approaching. It is a measurement of how far the market is from affordable, and the measurement is that the market is 3.4 times the benchmark at the median, and that one family in five pays more than half its income, which is the figure that should be quoted, because it is the figure that makes the abstract concrete: one in five families with a young child in care pays more for the care than for everything else in the household except the care itself, and the care is the budget.

The new insight

The affordability line is not crossed by a minority. It is crossed by 95.3 percent of families with a young child in paid care, which means the line does not describe the market at all, and the market describes itself instead: the median family pays 24.0 percent of its income, which is 3.4 times the line, and the typical family is not near the line, it is three times past it. The line was set in 2016, and the price of care has risen 29 percent in five years against 22 percent for overall inflation, which means the line has moved further away every year, and the families have not moved with it, because the wage has not kept up. The insight is not that the line is wrong. It is that the line is a measurement, and the measurement says the market is unaffordable for almost everyone who uses it, and the policy question is not how to bring families to the line, because 95.3 percent are past it, but how to bring the market to the families, because the market is the thing that moved.

What the study does not say

The study does not say that 95.3 percent of all American families pay more than 7 percent for child care, because it only covers families with a young child in paid care, which is a minority of all households, and the families without a young child pay nothing. It does not say that the median family pays $21,112, because the median family in the simulation is a blend of one, two, and three children, and the median family with one child pays $12,584, which is the number to quote for a single child. It does not say that one family in five pays more than half its income in the real market, because the top tail is inflated by the model's choice to place nannies in low-income households, and the real top tail is lower, though the real median is not, because the median is set by the center and home families. And it does not say that the tax saving fixes it, because the tax saving is at most $2,224 for a household with an FSA, which lowers the median share from 24.0 percent to about 21.6 percent, which is still three times the line. The study says that the burden is broad, that it is deep, and that it is worst for the families with the most children and the lowest incomes, which is the finding the simulation was built to test, and which it returns without ambiguity.

Sources and reproducibility

Child Care Aware of America, Child Care in America: 2024 Affordability Analysis, Tables I and II (center $300, $273, $242 a week by age; home $220, $206, $200). Care.com 2026 Cost of Care Report (nanny $870 a week for an infant; parents spend an average of 20 percent of household income on child care). U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States: 2025 (median household income $87,460 in 2025). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services affordability benchmark (7 percent of family income). Reproducibility: 10,000 scenarios, seed 20261102, mulberry32 generator; income lognormal with median $87,460 and sigma 0.55; children 1/2/3 at 55/32/13 percent; ages infant/toddler/preschool at 30/30/40 percent; care type center/home/nanny at 55/30/15 percent; weekly rates as stated; annual bill is weekly rate times 52, summed across children; share is annual bill divided by income. All study figures were computed from that simulation, and the calculator on this site runs the same annual formula on any single family's inputs.

Study questions

What share of families pay more than 7% of income for child care?: In this study's simulation of 10,000 families with a young child in paid care, 95.3 percent pay more than 7 percent of their income, and the median family pays 24.0 percent, or $21,112 a year, which is 3.4 times the 7 percent line. The median bill for one child is $12,584, for two children $26,780, and for three $40,976.
How was the child care burden study run?: 10,000 simulated families, with a fixed seed (20261102) so the result is reproducible. Income is drawn from a lognormal distribution with a median of $87,460, the Census Bureau's median household income for 2025. Children, ages, and care types are drawn from stated shares, and weekly rates are Child Care Aware of America's 2024 state averages, with the nanny at Care.com's 2026 posted rate of $870 a week. Every family is priced full-time, 52 weeks, through this site's calculator formula.
What is the 7% child care affordability benchmark?: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' long-standing benchmark that child care should cost no more than 7 percent of family income. On the $87,460 median household income, that is $6,122 a year, or $510 a month. One infant in full-time center care costs $15,600 a year, which is 17.8 percent of the median income, or $9,478 over the line.