High cost of child care a struggle for families
For many parents, the high cost of child care can force hard decisions about work, budgets and even if they can afford to continue growing their family.
Canonsburg resident Mindy Kass and her husband looked into day care for their 2-year-old daughter Lily, but found it just was not feasible.
“We rent, we don’t even own our own home yet, and we need both of our incomes to even, you know, survive (with) an $1,100 rental home, and when we looked into the cost of day care it was going to be around approximately anywhere from like 15 to 25 grand extra a year,” Kass said.
Kass is able to have her parents babysit, but says that would not be a workable solution if she and her husband were to have another child.
She described feeling “stuck,” because the expense of child care is a roadblock to expanding their family.
“I’m trying to really think outside the box of what that could look like, because we don’t want this to prevent us from growing our family,” Kass said. “We really want our daughter to have a sibling. We would like to have two children, ideally. And it’s just unfortunate the economy that we live in just makes that seem so impossible and so unattainable now.”
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates, in 2023 dollars, that the median annual cost of child care for an infant in Washington County is $13,722. In Fayette County, the estimate is $9,885, and it is $10,099 in Greene County.
Melissa Honeygosky, of Monongahela, pays about $660 a month to send her infant son Lincoln to Lil Sprouts Childcare Center for three days a week.
She says that extra expense has made saving money difficult.
“That’s more than a car payment right there,” Honeygosky said.
She and her husband are mindful to budget for cheaper groceries, and spend less eating out than before.
“Our house projects and stuff have slowed down with, you know, just not having much wiggle room anymore. That really took away any wiggle room we had,” Honeygosky said.
Breann Pfeifer, of Canonsburg, has two daughters ages 7 and 4, and have been enrolled at Tender Care Learning Center in North Strabane Township.
In 2024, her family spent $29,869 for both kids.
The oldest, Hannah, now being in first grade in the Canon-McMillan School District has cut down on those costs. Pfeifer also made the decision to stop working at the beginning of this year.
“Specifically because, I mean, my paycheck was basically paying for child care and then we’d have a couple hundred dollars extra. So I would encourage people to maybe sit down and do their budget both ways and see what makes sense. Because if it doesn’t make sense for mom to work, then it doesn’t,” Pfeifer said.
What drives child care costs so high? Owners of the facilities describe running a day care as an expensive endeavor.
Carrie Betarie operates Little Squirts U Childcare and Enrichment Center in North Strabane Township. She estimates one month of expenses to be between $25,000 and $30,000.
Most of that goes toward paying the employees.
“I have had most of my employees since I opened almost 10 years ago, and I really, really have a wonderful staff. But also on the flip side of that, payroll is very high. So I spend, monthly, close to $20,000 just on payroll,” Betarie said. “I would spend double that to have the employees that I have … It’s high because they absolutely deserve what they’re getting paid, but the money that comes in just doesn’t cover it.”
Beyond paying employees, there are myriad little purchases and unexpected expenses that can really begin to add up. There are the ink cartridges for printers, and cleaning supplies.
“Once you pay everything, things go wrong and toilets need fixed and, you know, maybe the AC needs to be replaced … I just replaced all the batteries in my exit signs yesterday, and it cost me close to $170,” Betarie said.
Jessica Barnhart owns multiple day cares in Fayette County and West Virginia – Hopwood Child Care, Uniontown Child Care and Morgantown Child Care. Hopwood and Uniontown Child Care each have two locations.
Barnhart funds those facilities herself, and notes that the tuition parents pay covers a lot more than the care itself.
There are materials, utilities, maintenance, grass cutting, snow plowing, painting, new floors and equipment.
“That’s all me,” Barnhart said. “I think that sometimes families don’t understand that they’re not just paying for the time that we spend with the children. They’re paying for all of that as well.”
Between the four locations in Hopwood and Uniontown, Barnhart says there are 60 staff members and the monthly overhead is about $80,000.
Barnhart is passionate about being able to provide quality child care to families in the region. She says she has taken on immense amounts of debt to open her facilities in the region.
“This isn’t something that is paid for by tax dollars. This is something that is paid for by the individual that opened up the facility,” Barnhart said. “I mean, I have millions in dollars in loans that I have taken out on my own. Just because I want to provide that care for these families. It’s not something that anybody has asked me to do. I just knew that it was a need, and somehow I ended up being quite good at it so I can open multiple centers. But, it is very costly to open new centers.”