Childcare has become so expensive that many families have given up looking for affordable options and are providing the service themselves, forcing them to make tough financial and personal sacrifices.
While consumer prices overall have cooled off sharply from 40-year highs in 2022, childcare costs have not and were up 5.2% year over year in September—more than 1.5 times the total inflation rate, according to a note from Bank of America Institute last week.
