Nine million residents and one million families call North Carolina home, and with 1.4 million kids under the age of 11, in the perfect child care age range, it’s bound to be a fun place to raise children. In fact, almost 25% of children under the age of six in the state come from either single-parent families or families with both parents in the workforce. This places the same group of almost 25% of children under six in the group that “potentially needs child care.” Lucky for the kids, there are close to 5,000 child care centers and over 3,400 family child care homes throughout the state.
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The spots in child care facilities obviously don’t just go to the 25% that are under the age of six. In fact the breakdown for child care request can be unexpected. In fact, 50% of child care requests in the state of North Carolina are for infant and toddler care. That is considerably higher than the national average of 40%. Preschool-age care gets 30% of the requests while school-age care is the lowest of the three age categories at 20%. Nationally, preschool-age comes in at 34% and school-age at 25%.
Although the infant and toddler care request rate is higher than expected, the expected annual fee is not high when compared to national annual prices. Although nationwide expenses for infant and toddler care can run into the price range of $18,000, residents of North Carolina should expect to pay almost $10,000 less for the same category. Children a little bit older come with a little bit lower of a price. Across the US, a child care for a four-year-old can be anywhere from just under $4000 up to just over $14,000. North Carolinians can be found somewhere in the middle, but again significantly lower than the high end of the scale at about $7,250 annually.
The break in the prices is not the only perk North Carolinian families have in raising children. North Carolina has beach breaks to the east and mountains to the rest for any kind of fun filled activities families with kids might be looking for. As if they didn’t all ready have it all with ocean and mountains, North Carolina is also home to metropolitan areas like the city of Charlotte. No matter what they are looking for, families can find it in North Carolina.
