Daycare More Expensive Than College in New York, Study Finds

BY DEB BELT

Parents in New York may be dipping into college savings for their kids much earlier. They may have to use the savings to pay for daycare before that child even heads to elementary school.

A study recently released by the Economic Policy Institute reported that New York is one of 33 states where infant care is more expensive per year than in-state tuition for a 4-year public college.

New York is ranked fourth out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care.

RELATED: Long Island is 2nd Most Expensive Place in U.S. to Raise a Family

The report found that the average annual cost of infant care in the Empire State is $14,144, which breaks down to $1,179 per month, and child care for a 4-year-old costs $11,700, or $975 per month.

In comparing the cost to college tuition, infant care is $7,252, or 105.2 percent more than the cost of an in-state four-year college. Care for infants also costs families just 5.9 percent less than average rent rates, said the study.

Families with two children of course are paying more, but even one child is costing the average family 21.2 percent of its annual income in New York. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that it should cost no more than 10 percent of they family's annual income to be "affordable." By this standard, only 20.3 percent of New York families can afford infant care.

• Read the full report here.

A minimum-wage worker in New York would need to work full time for 39 weeks, or from January to September, just to pay for child care for one infant.

In spite of the steep cost of care, child care workers struggle to get by, the study says. 

Nationally, child care workers’ families are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as other workers’ families (14.7% compared with 6.7%).

A typical child care worker in New York would have to spend 56.4 percent of her earnings to put her own child in infant care.