Cost of Raising a Child Calculator

Optional. Anything this household spends on the child each year that the survey's profile does not already carry, such as private school fees, a sport or an instrument. Leave it blank if there is nothing, and it reads as nothing. It is added to every year counted and is carried forward at the same inflation rate as everything else, so entering a fee that will only be paid for a few years overstates the total.

Your household's income before tax, for the year. It does not add anything to the cost; it decides which of the three income groups the survey measured your household falls in, and each group has its own published total. The step between the groups is large, so a small change near a boundary can move the answer and a large change inside one group will not move it at all. The survey measured nothing above its top group, and an income above that is answered with the top group's figures rather than extrapolated.

Where the household lives. The survey published a separate spending profile for each of five areas and for the country as a whole, one for each income group, and every year of this calculation reads yours. The difference between them is large: the urban Northeast spent about 27 percent more on a child than rural areas did. Much of that gap is housing and child care. If none of the five fits, the national average is the honest choice.

How old the child is now, in whole years. Everything is counted from this age through 17, so a newborn gives eighteen years and a seventeen-year-old gives one. Older children cost more per year than younger ones, so a total for an older child is smaller than a newborn's but its average year is larger.

How many children are in the household, including this one. It changes what this one child costs, because the survey found real economies of scale: an only child costs 27 percent more than a child in a two child family, and where there are three or more each one costs 24 percent less. Four, five and six carry the same adjustment as three, which is as far as the survey went. To get a household total, run each child at their own age and add the results.

How fast you expect these costs to rise each year from now on. It does not touch the figures in today's money at all; it decides the second total, which is what the same spending adds up to in the dollars of the year each amount is actually paid. Around three percent is general consumer inflation; the child specific studies have recorded anything from a fall of two percent in one city to a rise of twenty three percent in another in a single year, so the grid at the foot is worth reading rather than trusting one rate.

Machinery. Excel requires the formula being tabulated to sit in the grid's top-left corner, where it means nothing to a reader, so it is formatted away. It holds Total_Cost_Nominal.

The values down the left of the grid: the household income before tax, in steps of ten thousand either side of yours and never below nothing. Read a row to hold the income fixed and vary the inflation rate. The middle entry is your own income. The totals change in steps rather than smoothly down this axis, because the survey measured three income groups and nothing between them.

Machinery, and NOT an input. Excel substitutes each value from the row axis into this cell while it fills the grid; the rest of the time it mirrors Household_Income. Change Household_Income above, never this: the axis is derived from it, so editing the mirror moves the axis while the table walks and the grid comes out meaningless.

What the region is worth: that region's published middle-income total divided by the national one. It runs from 0.83 for rural areas to 1.13 for the urban Northeast. It is shown for comparison rather than applied, because each year reads the survey's own profile for your area and income group. The published regional spread is narrower than the spread between individual cities that later studies measured, so treat it as a broad adjustment rather than a local price.

The values across the top of the grid: the cost inflation rate, in half-point steps either side of yours and never below nothing. Read a column to hold the rate fixed and vary the income. The middle entry is your own rate, and a very low rate makes the floor repeat near the left of this axis, which is the grid running out of room rather than an error.

Machinery, and NOT an input. The same for the column axis: Excel substitutes into it while filling the grid, and the rest of the time it mirrors Cost_Inflation.

What the years from this child's age through 17 come to, with every year priced in today's money. This is the figure to compare with a published headline, because published headlines are stated in the money of one year. It excludes college, pregnancy and birth, and any earnings a parent gives up, and no tax credit is deducted from it.

One row for each year from the child's age now through the last age the survey covers: the age, what that year costs in today's money, and what it costs in the dollars of the year it is spent. Years outside that range are blank rather than zero, because a zero would read as a year that cost nothing.

How many years are being counted: from the child's age now through the last age the survey covers, so a newborn gives eighteen and a seventeen-year-old gives one. Every total on this sheet covers exactly these years and nothing outside them.

The body of the grid: the total in the dollars of each year, worked out again for every combination of the two axes. One hundred and twenty-one cells, each one the whole calculation run again. It is a component of the grid rather than a result on its own.

What the income group is worth in your area: that group's published total for the area divided by the area's middle group's. The lower group spent about three quarters of the middle group's figure on a child and the higher group about half as much again, but the ratio differs from one area to another, which is why each year reads the survey's own profile for your area and group rather than multiplying by this figure. It is a measurement of what families did spend, not a statement about what a child needs.

The same years priced in the dollars of the year each amount is actually spent, so it carries the inflation rate as well. It is the larger of the two totals whenever the rate is above nothing, and the gap between them is what inflation alone adds over the years remaining. It is not a forecast: it is the arithmetic of the rate entered, and the grid at the foot shows how much that one assumption is worth.

The clothing share of the total in today's money. It is the smallest of the seven categories, which surprises most readers and is one of the clearest signs that the total is a measurement rather than an estimate of what a child is thought to need.

The food share of the total in today's money. It is one of the categories the survey found rises most with the child's age, which is part of why the later years cost more than the early ones.

The health care share of the total in today's money. It covers what the household spent out of its own pocket and through premiums in the survey years, so a household with unusual medical costs should treat it as a floor.

What the year ahead costs, in today's money, at the child's current age. It is the figure most worth checking against your own spending, because it is the only one that describes a year you are living through rather than a sum over many.

The total in today's money divided by the years counted. It is above the cost of the year ahead for a young child and below it for an older one, because spending rises with age, so the two together say which side of the childhood you are on.

The child care and education share of the total in today's money. Read this one with care: it is an average across the whole of childhood, and the survey itself notes that it is concentrated before a child starts school. Full time care for an infant costs several times this average in a year, so a household with a child under five should price care separately rather than take a share of this.

Which of the three household income groups the survey measured your household falls in, after its own income boundaries have been brought to today's money by the price factor. It reads Lower, Middle or Higher, and together with the region it selects which of the survey's eighteen published profiles every year reads.

Reads OK, or explains why the inputs are not valid or why the answer deserves a second look.

What the number of children is worth as a multiplier on this one child: 1.27 for an only child, 1 for one of two, 0.76 for one of three or more. It is the survey's own measured economy of scale, and leaving it out is why multiplying a single child's figure by three overstates a three child family by roughly a third.

The housing share of the total in today's money. It is the largest of the seven, and it is worth knowing how the survey measured it: as the average additional cost of one bedroom in the family's home, utilities and furniture included and the same for every age of the child, not as a per-person share of the household's housing, which is the method the series used before 2008. A study that prices only the extra rent one more child causes puts this figure well below the survey's and child care at the top of its list instead, and the two methods must never be mixed in one total.

Everything the survey grouped together outside the other six: personal care, entertainment and reading. It is the residue of the published table rather than a category anybody budgets for.

The transportation share of the total in today's money. The survey found it highest for a child aged 15 to 17, when driving and activities further from home begin.