New Study Shows How Much Parents Pay for Child Care in 2019

It’s no surprise that child care is expensive. But just how expensive is it in other parts of the US? Well, a recent study shows how much parents pay for child care in 2019 and the results may shock you. Urbansitter, a network parents can use to find reliable and professional babysitters, has conducted their 8th annual child care study. For 2019, Urbansitter conducted a study of 28,000 families across the United States to find the average babysitting rates and what they found was the average hourly babysitting rate is $16.75 for one child, $19.26 for two children and $20.76 for three children.  Of course, this rate varied by location. The most expensive location in the U.S. was San Francisco, where babysitters are paid an average of $18.75 for one child and $21.30 for two children. Las Vegas comes in at the cheapest, with rates at $11.63 for one child and $14.71 for two.  Again, these are just averages by location. While looking at it hourly may not seem like much, looking at the numbers yearly is shocking. Parents spend on average $10K – $30K per year on just child care alone and sometimes that doesn’t even include prices for snacks and other expenses such as diapers and wipes. That’s an entire year’s salary for some. Some parents are even paying more during the Summer months due to Summer break because while kids are out of school, parents still have to work. So, cost are incurred for school-aged children during the summer months. It’s no wonder that being a stay-at-home mom makes sense for some households. Some families realize a second job would basically be paying for child care. While it is expensive, we know just how hard taking care of children all-day is and pay should reflect that. I’ve always thought that being a full-time parent or nanny should be classified as an actual career and be paid as such. What do you think? Do these numbers accurately represent how much you pay in child care?