Childcare costs 'more than a mortgage' per kid, forcing Philly parents to make tough choices

The Salovin family pays $26,000 a year for childcare for their two daughters.

For them, it’s a worthwhile expense, knowing their 1- and 4-year-old girls are at a licensed facility and they can both stay in the workforce.

But even the Delaware County, Pennsylvania, couple — who work in health-care administration and pharmaceuticals — is being stretched to their limit financially.

“It’s not the only reason we’re not having any more kids,” said Amy Salovin, 36. “But it’s a factor in our decision to remain a family of four.”

When they started looking at centers in 2019, the Salovins were quoted prices of $300 to $600 a week.

“We were really stressed because we were also making student loan payments, which were for us very high,” she said. Since then, their job situations have changed, prompting them to earn more, and the three-year pandemic pause in student loan payments freed up more of their monthly income. Those factors have allowed them to pay for yearlong, five-days-a-week care.

“What would we have done otherwise?” Salovin said. “I don’t know,”

For years, the rising cost of childcare has caused parents across the Philadelphia region and the country to make tough choices.

Between 2019 and 2023, childcare costs jumped more than 30%, outpacing inflation, according to anonymized Bank of America data for 68 million customers nationwide. Families making between $100,000 and $250,000 a year saw the biggest increases.

Amid an ongoing staffing crisis, the childcare landscape got even bleaker this fall when federal stimulus money — which an expert said had “kept the childcare system from collapsing” during the pandemic — ran out.

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