Child Care Costs Nearly $14K Annually In Illinois

ACROSS ILLINOIS — Child care isn’t cheap in Illinois. According to updated research from the Economic Policy Institute, parents in Illinois shell out $13,802 for infant care on average every year — that's $1,150 each month.

For parents in Illinois, child care is just $168 (1.2 percent) less expensive than in-state tuition at a four-year public college. For more than half the country, child care is more expensive than in-state tuition.

While infant care costs Illinois parents just less than $14,000 each year, the child-care costs for a 4-year-old is $10,372 or $864 per month, according to the Washington, D.C.-based think tank’s calculations.

By U.S. Department of Health and Human Service standards, infant care is only affordable for 8.9 percent of Illinois families. The agency’s standard says that child care if affordable when it costs no more than 7 percent of a family’s income. According to the EPI’s calculations, infant care for one child would take up 20.1 percent of a median family’s income in Illinois.

Workers who earn minimum wage in Illinois would need to work full time for 42 weeks, or from January to October, just to pay for childcare for one infant, the EPI says.

The EPI suggests certain solutions for lowering the costs of child care, including capping child-care expenses at 7 percent. That would save a typical family in Illinois $8,661 and would free up more parents to work.