New federal data show child care and multigenerational caregiving remain major household pressures
New federal data released in 2026 show how U.S. families are managing the cost of paid child care alongside increasingly complex caregiving arrangements.
A Census Bureau working paper found that 23.9% of households with children age 13 or younger paid for child care in 2024. Those households spent an average of $10,520 during the year, an amount equal to 5.6% of household income.
The Census Bureau also made new 2025 Survey of Income and Program Participation data available on July 15, 2026. The data cover economic well-being, family dynamics, education, assets, health insurance, child care and food security.
Child care remains a substantial household expense
The child-care figures come from the Census working paper Child Care Challenges and Adaptations: Findings from the 2025 CPS ASEC. The paper uses questions from the 2025 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement to report household child-care spending in 2024.
That timing matters: the spending figures describe 2024, while the survey questions were part of the 2025 data-collection process. The paper is also identified by the Census Bureau as a working paper, rather than a final statistical release.
The figures do not mean that every U.S. family paid the reported amount. They describe households with children age 13 or younger that paid for care, and the average applies to that group. Families that did not pay for child care are not included in that spending average.
For households facing care decisions, the data provide a measure of the financial pressure associated with paid care. The 5.6% figure places the average expense in relation to household income, while the $10,520 figure shows the annual dollar amount reported for the households covered by the analysis.
More adults are living across generations
A separate Federal Reserve analysis examined living arrangements and care work, including pressures related to child care and eldercare. It reported that 2% of adults lived simultaneously with a parent and an adult child in 2025.
The Federal Reserve said that share was 6 percentage points higher than in 2022 and 12 percentage points higher than in 2019. The figures describe adults living in a household arrangement that includes both an older generation and an adult child; they do not by themselves establish why those households formed.
Families may be balancing more than one kind of care at the same time. Parents may be responsible for children, while also helping an older parent or sharing a home with adult children. The federal reports document those circumstances separately, but they do not establish that child-care costs caused the increase in multigenerational living.
What the data show—and what they do not
Taken together, the Census and Federal Reserve analyses show the range of arrangements families use to manage care and household costs. One report measures paid child-care spending among a defined group of households. The other measures a specific multigenerational living arrangement among adults.
Those survey populations and measures are different and should not be treated as directly interchangeable. The results therefore provide related evidence about family pressures, not a single estimate of the number of Americans affected by caregiving or child-care costs.
The next available federal data point is the Census Bureau’s 2025 SIPP release, made available July 15. Its coverage of family dynamics, child care, economic well-being and food security gives researchers and policymakers additional national data for examining how households are adapting to care demands.
Sources
- Child Care Challenges and Adaptations: Findings from the 2025 CPS ASEC, U.S. Census Bureau
- Families and Living Arrangements, U.S. Census Bureau
- Living Arrangements and Care Work, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
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