WASHINGTON — Raising a child has never been cheap. But millennials starting a family today face a double disadvantage that makes it more difficult to have children than it was for their parents.
Not only is it ever more expensive to have a child, but many young workers struggle with stagnant or falling wages, leaving them less equipped to cope with rising costs.
“They’re being expected to do more with less,” says Konrad Mugglestone, a policy analyst for Young Invincibles and author of a report on the rising costs faced by parents born in the 1980s and 1990s.
Child care and education — not including college costs — now make up 18 percent of the cost of raising a child, up from 2 percent in 1960, according to the report. That is partly because child care costs are rising as demand for those services increase.
Annual day care costs for a 4-year-old range from about $4,300 in Mississippi to more than $12,300 in New York, according to Child Care Aware of America. In roughly 20 states, average annual child care costs are more expensive than housing.
Those expenses would take up a sizable chunk of the budget for almost any family. But young parents might especially struggle to cover those costs, said Gina Adams, a senior researcher for the Urban Institute.
“This is happening in the early stages of people’s earning careers, when they don’t have a lot of discretionary income,” Adams said.
For millennials, who entered the workforce in the recession and recovery, the situation is even more daunting: Even though they are more likely to have a college degree than previous generations, members of Generation Y often get stuck in low-paying jobs, according to a separate report by Young Invincibles.
The typical 18- to 34-year-old makes $2,000 less each year than young workers did in 1980, according to that study. And if they can’t find a way to balance work with raising a family, they risk being stuck in those low wages.
Because of their college degrees, many young workers are starting families while they’re still paying off student loans, which could make starting a child’s college fund seem impossible.
One in five millennial parents lives in poverty, according to the report. And even those financial struggles don’t guarantee assistance with paying for child care; many parents who qualify for aid are put on a waiting list.