Married Couple Making $180,000 Have A Hard Time Making Ends Meet After Paying $80,000 A Year In Childcare
The childcare crisis in America is very real.
krakenimages / Unsplash Life in the United States is becoming more expensive by the day, with no sign of relief coming any time soon. The cost of raising children, specifically, has soared, leaving many parents feeling like their cost of living is untenable.
A couple making $180,000 are having trouble making ends meet because they pay $80,000 a year in childcare.
The husband called The Ramsey Show to ask for advice from financial expert Dave Ramsey, yet all he got was ridiculed.
The man described his financial situation: He makes about $110,000 a year, and his wife, who’s completing her medical residency, makes $70,000. They own a house together, and he has about $25,000 of student loan debt.
Despite their seemingly high combined income, the man explained that he was having trouble paying for his family’s cost of living, which included having two kids in daycare.
“Can you explain to me why you can’t get by on $180,000?” Ramsey asked.
“Our childcare costs are about $80,000 a year,” the man replied, a number Ramsey scoffed at. Despite the financial expert’s disbelief, the man broke down in detail why his kids’ daycare costs $80,000 a year.
Photo: Hikkyo Ikan / Unsplash
“The base tuition for the daycare we use is $25,000 per kid,” he said. “Then we pay extra for early care and aftercare, and it doesn’t go during the summer, so during the summer, we need a nanny.”
“You guys have lost your minds,” Ramsey said, sharing a harsh, judgmental opinion that highlights how little he understands about the extremely high cost of childcare in the U.S.
“I don’t care how much money you make,” he stated. “There’s not enough money in the world that doesn’t make that stupid.”
Sadly, this man's financial concerns are common among parents across the country.
Paige Connell, a working mom of four kids, offered a rebuttal to the disconnect between Ramsey’s perspective and the reality of raising a family.
“It never ceases to amaze me how out-of-touch some people are with the lived experiences of parents here in the US,” she said. “Dave is supposed to be an expert in his field, so you think he would know that childcare is the number one rising cost for families here in our country.”
She noted that childcare “is more expensive and going up at a faster rate than our mortgages, our groceries, than gas.”
Photo: krakenimages / Unsplash
Connell lives in Massachusetts, a state where the average cost of childcare is $20,000, yet depending on which county someone lives in, that cost can go up to as high as $26,000.
Ramsey's perspective is not based on the lived experience of working parents.
Connell also explained that in states like Massachusetts, there’s a major lack of accessible childcare, “so that families will pay what they have to to find it.”
“There is no childcare,” she continued. “The pandemic destroyed the childcare industry for many, many people. Daycares were closing their doors left and right. There is more demand than ever and less supply. Teachers are leaving that field because the pay is so bad.”
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization that tracks state trends in child well-being, reported that childcare costs have increased by 220% in the last 30 years.
The challenges of finding accessible childcare affect more than just parents, however. It affects every U.S. citizen. The economy loses $122 billion a year due to childcare disruptions.
Connell offered what she sees as a solution to this major economic crisis: “Our government needs to subsidize childcare.”
The U.S. is balanced on an unsteady precipice. The lack of affordable childcare is only going to ripple out further, and it's clear that some form of change is needed.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers parenting, pop culture analysis, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.