WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Raising a child in Florida has never been more expensive \u2014 and for many parents, it’s becoming overwhelming.<\/p>\n
Melissa North is a single mom juggling it all.<\/p>\n
“You have to manage healthcare, food, everyday expenses, plus daycare,” North explains. “It never stops.”<\/p>\n
WATCH: <\/p>\n
Florida parents face rising childcare costs as state ranks among most expensive<\/p>\n
New data from LendingTree reveals Florida is now the 14th most expensive state to raise a child. The price tag? More than $280,000 from birth to age 18 \u2014 up from nearly $254,000 just last year.<\/p>\n
“In my opinion, I think that’s low because just daily having to provide (is expensive),” North said.<\/p>\n
Like many parents, North watches a huge chunk of her paycheck disappear into daycare costs \u2014 more than $1,600 every month. Those sky-high childcare expenses are one reason WalletHub recently ranked Florida among the worst states for working moms.<\/p>\n
“There are some strides with women and higher-paying positions, but when you’re still making 85% of what men make, that’s an issue that needs to be addressed,” explains Chip Lupo, a WalletHub analyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Raising a child in Florida has never been more expensive \u2014 and for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111800,1917,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-257654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-childcare-costs","tag-consumer","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}