Childcare Costs by State: Where Care Costs the Most

Weekly infant childcare prices vary enormously by state. Among states with 2022 NDCP data, center-based infant care runs as low as $118.73/week in Mississippi and as high as $461.55/week in Massachusetts — nearly a fourfold gap driven by regional cost of living, wages, and licensing requirements, not by data quality differences.

Key Takeaways

• Infant center-based care spans more than 3.5x across the states in this data: $118.73/week in Mississippi versus $461.55/week in Massachusetts (2022 NDCP data).
• State-level prices aren't a separate DOL statistic — they're the population-weighted median of that state's own county prices, so they reflect where most families in the state actually live.
• The national median for infant center-based care is $243.75/week; California, New York, Massachusetts, and DC sit above it, while Texas and Mississippi sit below it.
• Three states — Connecticut, New Mexico, and Indiana — have zero county-level price data in the 2022 NDCP release, even though their counties still exist on this site.
• Every state and DC has its own dedicated breakdown at the full state directory, with county-by-county detail beyond the six examples covered here.

Comparing childcare costs at the state level answers a different question than comparing counties. A state figure tells you roughly what a typical family pays somewhere in that state; a county figure tells you what families pay in one specific place. Both numbers come from the same 2022 NDCP release, and neither one replaces the other — see the national cost breakdown for the full national picture.

How Much Do Prices Vary by State?

Two price types appear throughout this data: center-based care (a licensed daycare center or preschool) and family child care (a smaller, licensed in-home provider). The two aren't always priced the same way relative to each other — Massachusetts's center-based infant rate is nearly double its family child care rate, $461.55/week versus $250.00/week, while California's gap is narrower at $379.21/week versus $284.37/week. Every figure below is for the infant age group specifically, which is the most expensive age band in nearly every state with data.

State medians in the 2022 NDCP data span a wide range, from just over $118 per week to nearly $500 per week for infant center-based care. The six states below illustrate that range, from the most expensive to the least expensive among the states with available data. For the complete picture across all 50 states and DC, see the full state directory at /daycare-cost.

• District of Columbia: $490.00/week center-based, $400.00/week family child care, across its single county-equivalent — the highest of these examples. See the DC breakdown.
• Massachusetts: $461.55/week center-based, $250.00/week family child care, across 14 counties with data. See the Massachusetts breakdown.
• California: $379.21/week center-based, $284.37/week family child care, across 58 counties with data. See the California breakdown.
• New York: $300.00/week center-based, $250.00/week family child care, across 62 counties with data. See the New York breakdown.
• Texas: $185.00/week center-based, $164.00/week family child care, across 254 counties with data — more counties than any other state in this sample. See the Texas breakdown.
• Mississippi: $118.73/week center-based across 82 counties with data — the lowest of these examples; the DOL dataset does not report a state-level family child care figure for Mississippi. See the Mississippi breakdown.

Comparing the extremes, DC's $490.00/week is a little over four times Mississippi's $118.73/week — illustrating how wide the range gets even within this limited set of examples. These six states are only a sample; the full state-by-state directory at /daycare-cost covers all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with every county that has DOL price data linked from its state hub page.

Why Do State Medians Differ From County Prices?

A state figure like Massachusetts's $461.55/week is not an independent DOL number — it's derived. This site calculates each state median as the population-weighted median of that state's own county-level medians, so the result is always a real county's price, not an average manufactured across counties. Counties with more families weigh more heavily in the calculation, which keeps the state figure anchored to where people actually live rather than being skewed by a handful of sparsely populated counties.

That weighting matters because county prices inside a single state can differ sharply. Texas's 254 counties carry a $185.00/week state median for infant center-based care, but that one number necessarily compresses a wide spread between its largest metro counties and its smallest rural ones. For a closer look at which specific counties post the highest and lowest prices nationwide, see the county-level rankings.

Two states can also share a similar state median while telling very different stories underneath — one might have a handful of expensive metro counties pulling the number up, another might have more consistent pricing spread across a larger number of mid-sized counties. Always check the specific county page, linked from each state hub at /daycare-cost, for the number that applies to your family.

The District of Columbia is worth calling out as a special case: because DC is a single county-equivalent, its "state" median IS its one county's price — $490.00/week for center-based infant care — with no weighting or averaging across multiple counties involved. That's part of why it tops this list: it's a single county-level price, not a figure diluted by lower-priced neighbors within the same jurisdiction.

Which States Have No Price Data?

Not every state has DOL price data to work with. Connecticut, New Mexico, and Indiana show zero county-level childcare prices in the 2022 NDCP release. This is a geography-versus-price-data mismatch, not a data-entry gap on this site: county geography — names, boundaries, official suffixes — is seeded independently from Census data, so every county in Connecticut, New Mexico, and Indiana still exists here. Each one simply displays "no official data available" rather than a fabricated or borrowed number.

That honesty matters more than filling the gap. A missing data point stays a missing data point on this site; it is never replaced with a national average, a neighboring county's figure, or a guess. If your state isn't Connecticut, New Mexico, or Indiana, its data may still be partial — check its hub at /daycare-cost to see exactly which of its counties have DOL figures.

Find Your State's Full Breakdown

The six examples above — DC, Massachusetts, California, New York, Texas, and Mississippi — show the range, but they're a small slice of the full picture. Every state and DC has its own dedicated page at /daycare-cost, with county tables, links to individual county pages, and the same 2022 NDCP sourcing used throughout this site. For the national numbers this data pack was drawn from, see the average daycare cost guide; for a ranked look at the individual counties driving the high end, see the most expensive counties for childcare.