The soaring cost of child care in the U.S. can now exceed what families pay for housing or college.

That’s according to recently released data that outlines the heavy financial burden on the nearly 14 million American parents who rely on paid caregivers to look after their children. Families spent as much as $15,600 per year on full-day care per child in 2022 (the latest year for which data is available), although those with infants can face costs as high as $31,544 annually, according to a recently updated database compiled by the Department of Labor. 

That exceeds the U.S. median rent of $15,216 that same year, while some families are spending as much as almost 30% of their annual earnings on child care, the agency noted. Overall, the cost of child care has soared more than 50% over the last decade.

“Having a young child in this country is a cause of poverty. It’s not correlated with it, it is a cause of poverty,” Elliot Haspel, the author of the nonfiction book “Crawling Behind, America’s Childcare Crisis and How to Fix It,” told the Harvard Graduate School of Education in October. 

Haspel noted that the demographic group most likely to face eviction “are Black children under the age of five. And a lot of this is a child care story. It isn’t a housing story.”

Families with infants typically pay more for child care, as well as those living in more populous counties or using center-based, instead of home-based, care, the Labor Department found. 

“The fact that the median cost of center-based infant care is more than the median cost of rent should be of urgent concern,” Wendy Chun-Hoon, director of the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, said in a statement. “Families are struggling and women are disproportionately impacted.”

Counties in which center infant prices demand the highest portion of median family income include:

• Sterns County, Minnesota
• Bronx County, New York
• Piute County, Utah
• Essex County, Vermont
• Grays Harbor and Wahkiakum counties in Washington 
• Guanica County, Puerto Rico

Child care can cost more than housing or college

The cost burden of paying for child care can exceed a typical family’s annual housing costs, and even cost more than in-state tuition at public universities, other research has found. 

In some U.S. states, child care expenses are consuming more than a quarter of an average household’s total income, with a typical family spending $700 a month on the service, Bank of America found in a 2023 report.

In 2022, the cost of child care for two kids in a center exceeded the typical annual mortgage payment in 41 states and the District of Columbia, while infant care costs at a center surpassed in-state tuition at a public university in 32 states and D.C., according to the advocacy organization First Focus. 

While consuming a large chunk of many families’ income, child care workers are generally poorly paid. As of May 2023, wages averaged $15.42 an hour, or just over $32,000 a year, according to federal data. Overall, the nation’s child care workforce is among the lowest 5% paid of all occupations, noted Haspel.  

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened an existing shortage of child care workers as thousands left the industry in favor of higher-paid work. More than half of child care providers surveyed in 2024 said their programs were under-enrolled relative to their current capacity for reasons including staffing shortages, First Focus found. 

The infusion of $24 billion in federal pandemic aid to child care providers, along with $14 billion more to help states address the issues, stopped costs from rising even further, the Labor Department said. 

“We know interventions like the American Rescue Plan have helped, but more federal investments are needed to ensure child care is accessible and affordable for all,” Chun-Hoon said, referring to the massive 2021 stimulus bill aimed at shoring up the economy during the health crisis.

A messy spell of winter weather continued to dominate forecasts Tuesday across the United States, with a mix of rain and snow expected to materialize in different areas around the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Storms could potentially impact travel plans, particularly for people in eastern parts of the country, while the Mountain West could feel the effects of an “Arctic blast” overnight Wednesday into Thursday.

Map of the Thanksgiving weather forecast for 2024

“A mix of rain and snow are possible across the eastern third of the country on Thanksgiving Day,” said CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan, who noted forecasting models were “reaching a consensus” by Tuesday and indicated the I-95 corridor, which runs along the East Coast from Miami to the Canadian border with Maine, would likely receive rain. Interior regions of the Northeast, like upstate New York, would likely see snow. 

Between 1 and 4 inches of snowfall could accumulate in those interior regions, Nolan said, while as much as a total 3 inches of rain could fall on affected areas. 

Temperatures are expected to drop across a majority of the U.S., with northern places like Minneapolis preparing for extreme cold. Chilly conditions will probably spare southeastern states, forecasts show.

Where will winter storms hit hardest for Thanksgiving?

Winter weather advisories were in place Tuesday for northern Michigan, where forecasters at the National Weather Service warned up to 6 inches of additional snowfall could accumulate in some places by the evening. Advisories were set to remain active through 7 p.m. in the local time zone.

“Expect the lake effect snowfall to pick up this afternoon when a stronger band moves onshore. Should the band remain onshore into tonight, the Winter Weather Advisory may need to be extended in time in the future,” states an alert issued early Tuesday morning by the weather service in Marquette, Michigan. Forecasters advised people to plan for “slippery road conditions and reduced visibility,” potentially during their morning and evening commutes.

Additional advisories were effective in parts of the Northeast on Tuesday afternoon. In Albany, New York, forecasts warned that “pockets of freezing rain” could create dangerous road conditions in the southern Adirondacks, Lake George and Saratoga regions, and southern Vermont before transitioning into normal rainfall Wednesday morning.

“Be aware of slippery roads and sidewalks during the morning commute or if traveling early for Thanksgiving,” states a message from the weather service in Albany. Freezing rain could potentially result in up to a tenth of an inch of ice, according to Nolan.

Farther west, a low-pressure weather system tied to the ongoing atmospheric river continued to shift inward from coastal areas, bringing with it rain and snow. The wintry weather prompted warnings in Nevada, as forecasters in Las Vegas predicted up to 14 inches of snow could fall in areas with higher elevation. 

Meanwhile, the threat of impending snowfall triggered a series of avalanche warnings in Colorado. Nolan said as much as 3 feet of snow could stack up in certain parts of the Colorado Rockies, with forecasts showing winds of 30-40 miles per hour could tear through the region along with the storms.

Will winter storms impact Thanksgiving travel?

Estimates suggest an unprecedented number of people will crowd roads and airports this week, as figures reported by AAA showed 80 million were expected to travel at least 50 miles over the next seven days. If the calculation hold up, it would set a new Thanksgiving record. Complicating the anticipated congestion is the major storm affecting huge sections of the U.S., from the western Rocky Mountains to the East Coast.

“We’ve been talking about it basically on repeat since Friday: storms on the West Coast, storms in the Northeast, and now a storm in the Mountain West,” said CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave, reporting from LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, on Tuesday. “So airports from San Francisco to Las Vegas, Salt Lake, Denver, and here in the Northeast, D.C. to Boston, could all see delays today as these various storm systems are moving around. A lot to watch.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said 50,000 flights were scheduled Tuesday, Van Cleave reported, noting the agency expects air travel to be even busier Wednesday and Sunday.

Where will it snow on Thanksgiving?

The storm system’s track was still somewhat uncertain Tuesday, but forecasters said below-average temperatures in the Northeast — especially in interior areas — could determine whether different locations in the region are hit with rain or snow. 

In the lead-up to Thanksgiving Day, forecasters at the Weather Prediction Center said heavy snow across the southern Sierra Nevada, Intermountain West and Central Rockies earlier in the week will be followed by snow showers across the Great Lakes that could result in up to 8 inches of snowfall by Thursday in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

As temperatures tick downward over the Northern Plains ahead of the holiday, the weather prediction center said a series of disturbances over the Central U.S. would “facilitate an arctic outbreak across the region” overnight Wednesday into Thanksgiving.