Survey: State has least affordable infant care

When their two children were in full-time child care, Marsha and Chris Kasper had been paying out about $1,400 a month to an Appleton child care center.

“It was more than our mortgage payment,” said Chris Kasper, of Kaukauna. “It was about a quarter of our take-home income.”

So what a relief it was when their oldest, Madeline, started kindergarten this fall.

“It’s huge,” said Kasper, a computer technician whose wife is a teacher. “(Madeline) is in an after-school program, which costs about $180 a month, but we saw a $450 drop in how much we pay.”

Child care, for many families, is part of the cost of raising children. But in Wisconsin, the price is particularly high.

Wisconsin ranks No. 1 for having the least affordable infant care at child care centers in the country, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.

When it comes care for preschoolers, the state ranks 16. The rankings are based on the price of child care as a percentage of the median family income with two wage earners.

The annual price for full-time infant care in Wisconsin child care center averages $11,855, representing 16.5 percent of family income, according to NACCRRA’s annual report of child care prices.

The median family income in the state for a family household with two working parents is $71,927, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, preschool-age care costs on average $6,959 in Wisconsin, eating up about 9.7 percent of a family’s income.

“Why Wisconsin is the highest I don’t know,” said Mary Sue Voights, a resource specialist with Child Care Resource & Referral Inc. in Menasha. “But I can tell you it’s not because of the high wages that are paid in child care.”

The cost of child care in the Fox Valley, however, is lower than the state average.

Full-time infant care at a licensed group center in Outagamie, Calumet, and Waupaca counties averages about $8,286 per year, according to the Menasha nonprofit agency. For preschool-age care, it averages about $6,929, very close to the state average.

Donna Borchardt, manager of Fox Valley Technical College’s Parent/Child Center suspects that Wisconsin’s lower median income, plus costlier care in urban areas, might be driving Wisconsin’s rankings for less affordable prices, because when it comes to running a child care center, the costs are pretty consistent, regardless of where you live.

“Everyone has the same overhead,” Borchardt said. “You have to pay rent and utilities, pay your teachers, and food costs are the same. But the income in Wisconsin is just lower.”

Because of its high costs, infant care always is in short supply, Voights said. State regulations for licensed facilities require a ratio of no more than four babies per caregiver.

“Child care centers cannot afford to offer too many infant slots, because it affects their bottom line, so they usually limit the amount of amount of infants they can take in, so the demand is usually greater than the capacity,” she said.

Full text available at the Appleton Post-Crescent