Inflation drives the cost of raising a child to over $300,000

Raising a child is more expensive than ever thanks to rising inflation, with the average cost now exceeding $300,000, according to newly released estimates.

For a middle-income couple, it costs a total of $310,605 to raise a child born to age 17 in 2015, according to a Brookings Institution calculation provided to the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

That’s an average of $18,271 a year in parenting expenses, and total spending has increased $26,011, or more than 9 percent, since the last calculation two years ago, due to soaring inflation.

Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at Brookings who led the study, told DailyMail.com in a telephone interview that rising parenting costs could prompt some prospective parents to “think twice” before having children.

“The decision to have a child or another child is based on many different factors and cost is just one of them, but I do think that the cost of having children influences people’s behavior,” said Sawhill, who has a PhD in economics. .

“We’ve already seen the fertility rate fall, and I think this will add to that,” she said, citing trends that show Americans are having fewer children.

‘It’s not just the price’ [of childrearing] has gone up, because of the higher inflation, it’s that people need to be reminded that they’re going to have to pay for those costs,” Sawhill said.

“People will have to make compromises, either in what they consume or how much they work,” she added. ‘People have to think carefully about what is involved in having a child or another child.’

The new estimate of the cost of raising children does not include costs for school, the costs are only calculated up to the age of 17.

The calculations predicted that housing would be the largest parenting cost, accounting for 29 percent of the total costs, followed by food (18 percent), childcare and education (16 percent) and transportation (15 percent).

The new Brookings calculation was an inflation-adjusted update of a 2017 estimate from the United States Department of Agriculture, which at the time predicted that parents would spend $233,610 raising a child born in 2015.

But over the past year, inflation has pushed the prices of a wide variety of goods soaring, and families have felt the bottleneck.

In July, the US consumer price index rose 8.5 percent from a year ago. That was less than the dazzling annual increase of 9.1 percent in June, but still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.

It means the cost of everything from haircuts to back-to-school supplies has risen painfully fast, and low-income and middle-class families have been hit hardest.

While gas prices have fallen from their recent peaks, providing some relief, food prices have continued to climb, with grocery costs rising 13.1 percent in July from the year before.

Tamera Dixon, a Pittsburgh mom with a son, told the Journal she tries to save money in every possible way.

“Changing cell plans, eating out less, helping your neighbor, buying at your local grocery store, your local farmers market,” Dixon said.

“If you’ve done all those things naturally to survive, you’re out and used up all of that.”

Rising housing costs, which make up nearly a third of most household budgets, have become a particular concern for many families.

Buying a home in the US is the least affordable in 33 years as mortgage rates soar this year and home prices hit record highs, the National Association of Realtors said last week.

The average mortgage payment rose to $1,944 in June, up 33 percent from the January average of $1,297.

Rents have also risen sharply in many markets as families priced by buying a home drive up the demand for rental properties.