A Steep Price for Having Kids
More American women are choosing not to have children than three decades ago, and a new report may have a reason whyit's too expensive! The costs of raising a child from birth to age 18 has skyrocketed 22% since the 1960s. And that includes adjustments for inflation. One of the biggest causes of the change is medical care. Those costs have more than doubled since 1960 when the price tag was about $8,000, compared to more than $19,000 today. Despite the cost of food being such a big story these days, it actually cost more to feed your child 50 years ago.
Back then, food accounted for a quarter of all costs, whereas health care, education and child care were a measly 6% - but that would soon change. Jumping ahead two decades, the cost of just one child was actually under $189,000, but the cost of fuel was a major factor. As the price of gas hit new highs, the cost of transporting Junior to football practice or Jane to piano lessons jumped nearly 4%. The 90s saw the biggest increase in child-care costs over any decade on record - now topping $200,000. Overall costs increased 10 %, but if you wanted your child clothed when he or she traveled to school - those costs exploded by more than 50%. Then came the turn-of-the-century and the cost of taking your kid to a doctor ate away at the family budget. Health-care costs went up an astounding 64%. And the cost of child care increased by more than 25%. Now that more women were entering the workforce, child care became big business. Bottom line - taking into account inflation- a child born last year will cost their family nearly $236,000 by the time they graduate from high school. Children should not be a victim of our economic woes. Moms and dads shouldn't have to break the bank to give their kids clothes, an education and certainly not health care. But instead of finding ways to bring these costs up - this administration is only making things worse with programs like Obamacare. Time to get our priorities right, before child-care costs skyrocket again!
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