Daycare Cost Calc
Good decisions start with good data.
Official childcare price, inflation, income, subsidy and tax sources, with publication and retrieval dates.
Childcare prices.
DOL Women’s Bureau: National Database of Childcare Prices, latest bundled file 2008–2022, released in 2024. Original workbook and technical report.
The original workbook was retrieved from an Internet Archive capture of the official DOL URL when the live download was unavailable. The original URL and file checksum are preserved. State survey sources and import decisions are listed in the project source ledger; individual figure links identify any applied survey.
Childcare inflation.
BLS day care and preschool CPI-U, CUUR0000SEEB03. Target observation August 2026; annual source-year indices 2008–2025. Retrieved from the BLS public API.
Income, population and geography.
Census ACS 2024 five-year summary files: B19013, B19113 and B01001, plus the geography labels and place-within-county records. The observation window is 2020–2024.
Census county adjacency file supplies actual neighboring counties. ACS 2022 geography supports Connecticut’s historical county mapping.
Subsidy limits and copays.
ACF CCDF family income eligibility levels by state and family copayment table, January 2025, based on FY 2025–2027 plans submitted in 2024. Official-URL archive captures were used for the original PDFs.
ChildCare.gov state resources links to current state programs. The site retains the historical table date and links each state to its application resources.
Tax benefits and household employment.
- IRS Publication 15-B (2026): employer dependent care assistance.
- 26 U.S.C. §21: current federal care credit percentages and expense limits.
- IRS Publication 503: care expenses and filing examples. The reviewed edition covers 2025; 2026 percentage changes follow the statute.
- IRS Publication 926 (2026): household-employer payroll rules.
- IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32: 2026 federal brackets and standard deductions.
Nanny rates and wage context.
DOL state minimum wage table, updated July 1, 2026; DOL domestic-service hours guidance.
Care.com’s published nanny-rate context, reviewed May 2026 edition. It is a platform survey and posted-rate sample, not an official county median. Our calculator’s $25/hour default is an editable planning assumption.
All bundled sources were retrieved or reviewed on 2026-10-01. Government attribution does not imply endorsement.