Adjusted for inflation, the cost of raising a child born in 2013 to age 18 is $304,480, according to USDA numbers.
The changes in the last few decades have come in a few key areas. Health-care costs accounted for about 4% of child-rearing costs in 1993 when my daughter was born, but they amount to 8% of the tally today.
The biggest change since the USDA started keeping the numbers back in 1960 comes in child-care costs, which the agency lumps in with education costs (which can range from preschool and nursery school to private school). On average in the 1960s, child-care costs were roughly 2% of the total paid to get a child to the age of majority; today, child-care/education costs make up nearly 20% of the total.
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