The High Costs of Raising Children

Our children, of course, are priceless. But they do have a cost: about a quarter-million dollars.

A new government report estimated that a middle-income family with a child born last year will spend about $221,000 raising that child from birth through age 17, according to the Associated Press. (The number rises to some $292,000 when adjusted for inflation.) The figures don’t count the cost of college or childbirth.

Annual child-rearing expense estimates ranged between $11,610 and $13,480 per-child in married, middle-class family with two children.

The report, by the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, said that housing was a family’s single largest expense, followed by food and the costs of child care and education.

Money spent on child-related costs increases as a family’s income goes up. For instance, those with an income between $57,000 and $99,000 spend about $221,000 and those with higher incomes are expected to spend roughly $367,000 through age 17. Costs of raising a child are highest in the urban northeast and lowest in the urban south and rural areas.

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