Americans are spending about 15% of total income on child care, study finds

Researchers say child care is more expensive than ever.

These findings, however, will not come as a surprise to many families.

A new study finds the typical American household with one infant is now spending about 15-percent of its total income on daycare.

That amounts to spending an average of $14,070 per year, per infant.

ABC station KOMO in Seattle recently held a town hall on the issue.

"Most of the places were more than our mortgage, which seems kind of crazy," said one mother.

"Having two kids go to daycare two days a week, still the cost of it will be more than my take home pay," said another.

It's also been a hot topic on the campaign trail.

"We're going to be taking in trillions of dollars and as much as child care is being talked about as being expensive, it's relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in," said Trump.

"My plan is that no family, no working family should pay no more than 7-percent of their income on child care," said Harris.

Many child care centers say post-COVID they've struggled with staffing shortages and the expiration of federal funds, and have been forced to pass higher costs onto families.

Those costs, according to one survey, have prompted 45-percent of working mothers to consider leaving the workforce or reducing their work hours.

"Which has a direct impact on our economy, you see the businesses, everyone has 'Help Wanted'. We have to become really tolerant of going someplace and waiting and not having service that we had six, seven years ago," says Sheri Scavone, CEO of Western New York Women's Foundation.

The new study ranked the states on daycare costs.

The three least affordable states were New Mexico, Hawaii and New York.

There are some ways to manage the high costs.

Experts say make sure you are claiming tax credits for dependents, checking your flexible spending account to see if you can offset expenses, and looking for financial assistance in your area through the Child Care Resource and Referral organization.