Raising A Child Now Costs About $303,000: Study Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times, Parents who start raising a child in 2026 will spend around $303,418 from birth to 18 years old, according to a study published April 6 by Lending Tree. The cost increased 1.9 percent from last year. The average annual cost works out to about $16,857 over 18 years, pushing this year’s estimate over $30...
Raising A Child Now Costs About $303,000: Study Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times, Parents who start raising a child in 2026 will spend around $303,418 from birth to 18 years old, according to a study published April 6 by Lending Tree. The cost increased 1.9 percent from last year. The average annual cost works out to about $16,857 over 18 years, pushing this year’s estimate over $300,000 for the first time since Lending Tree began calculating it in 2023, the online loan marketplace reported . Hawaii is the most expensive state to raise a small child, as yearly costs reached $40,342 for the first five years, the report said. Raising a child for 18 years in Hawaii is projected to cost $412,661. The next most expensive state is Alaska at $365,047, followed by Maryland at $326,360. Parents in the Aloha State are projected to spend more than 27 percent of their yearly income on raising a small child. Nebraska and Indiana follow closely with 23 percent. In all, parents in 22 states should expect to spend at least 20 percent of their yearly income on raising a small child, the report stated. Maryland at $36,419 and Massachusetts at $34,247 were the second and third-most costly states per year for young children. California came in fourth highest with a yearly cost of $33,692. Insurance premiums in California were the highest of the four top states at an average of $5,254 per year. The differences between some coastal states are substantial. Raising a child in California will now cost an average of $312,300, compared with Florida, where it costs $280,280, the study showed. States with the lowest annual costs to raise a small child were Mississippi ($17,148), Alabama ($18,019), and South Dakota ($18,622). Florida ranked 27th with a nearly $25,000 annual price tag to raise a small child, while Texas ranked 45th at just about $21,000. Costs to raise a small child rose by about 10 percent or more in 14 states from 2025 to 2026. In four of those states, prices jum...