The subsidy programs are intended to remove financial barriers to the adoption of children with special needs, but they are not intended to cover the
full cost of raising a child.
Whether you have one child, or 10, the
average cost of raising a child in America has been estimated to be almost $ 250,000, according to a 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Published by the conservative think - tank Fraser Institute, the report's goal is to influence public policy and «set the record straight» on «wildly off - base» reports on
financial costs of raising children.
«I'm simply, as an academic economist and someone interested in the policy area, trying to set the record straight about the
actual costs of raising a child.»
The average
cost of raising a child born in 2013 to age 18 for a middle - income family in the U.S. is roughly $ 245,000, or $ 304,000 when adjusted for inflation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
With currently qualifying Canadian families receiving as much as $ 3,654 annually from these programs, what this report suggests is that Canadian taxpayers are paying the
entire cost of raising a child in a low income family — even when that family has paid income.
Add to this the
opportunity costs of raising children: the investment returns that parents could have earned if they had taken the money they spent on kids and saved it instead — at five per cent interest, that comes out to roughly $ 280,000 — and the lost income from having one parent take time off work to care for a child.
Adjusted for inflation that figure today would be $ 13,366 pushing the total
cost of raising a child past the quarter million mark — a $ 10,200 increase in four years.
Web tools and resources include the Efinancial Life Insurance Calculator, Net Worth Calculator, Life Insurance E-Learning Center,
Cost of Raising Children Calculator, and more.
However, the city - state did fall down the rankings in a few areas, including work - life balance (35th in the world) and the
overall cost of raising children (42nd).
Child support refers to the financial support a noncustodial parent will pay to the custodial parent to help with the financial
cost of raising a child until the child is 21 years of age.
In the early 1970s, when 70 % of families had only a single income earner, raising kids was demanding, but the only financial penalty you paid was the
actual cost of raising each child.
For example, Dasgupta and Ehrlich say that in places in Sub-Saharan Africa where entire communities take responsibility for raising children (think: «it takes a village»), parents have more children than they would if they bore all alone the
full costs of raising the children.
Apart from the
basic costs of raising a child and providing for a quality education, one of the major areas that you'll need to financially ensure is that of the child's health care.
The report,
The Cost of Raising Children, looked at data from Statistics Canada and Health Canada, articles in magazines and newspapers, and family budgets from other sources.
Christopher Bruce, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary, said reports such as the Fraser Institute's will not substantially impact how the government develops certain policies relating to
the cost of raising children.
People cling to the statistics that kids are going to cost a bundle, but those statistics also show that
the cost of raising a child is proportionate to how much income someone has.
Read more: How to deal with being pregnant at work The working parents» guide to dealing with sick kids Million - dollar babies: The cost of raising a child
Low fertility, the one - child policy and
the cost of raising children in a system without adequate maternity facilities have all caused the birth rate to fall just as more old people are living longer.
The Santiagos are only now discovering what nearly six million Canadian families with dependent children know all too well:
The cost of raising a child has hit astonishing new heights.
«
The cost of raising children is rising but for the first time in decades support for families is not keeping pace,» she said.
Every man 15 and older would be required to take out a $ 1 million (or more depending on history, genetics, etc.) potential - pregnancy insurance plan, which would cover
the cost of raising a child as well as all pregnancy - and birth - related costs as well as IPV and other unforeseen problems (see below).