Childcare costs as much as buying a brand new Hyundai Elantra each year.

In the United States, per-child spending doubled from the 1970s to the 2000s, according to a 2013 paper by Sabino Kornich of the University of Sydney and Frank Furstenberg of the University of Pennsylvania. Parents spent more on education, toys, and games. But nothing grew faster than per-child spending on child care, which increased by a factor of 21—or approximately 2,000 percent—in those 40 years.

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But child-care spending is unlike other spending. By some measures, it’s getting more expensive faster than almost every other consumer good or service that the government tracks. The Census Bureau has found that child-care expenditures rose more than 40 percent from 1990 to 2011, during a period when middle-class wages stagnated. Since the 1990s, child-care costs have grown twice as fast as overall inflation. In California, the cost of a typical day-care center is now equal to almost half of the median income of a single mother.

Pick whatever source and statistic you like, because they all point to the same conclusion: Child care in America has become ludicrously expensive. The average cost of a full-time child-care program in the U.S. is now $16,000 a year—and more, in some states, than tuition at a flagship university.

What the hell is going on? And what should we do about it?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-child-care-so-expensive/602599/