Red-Hot Inflation Drives up Cost of Raising a Child by Over $1,500 per Year: Report

But the true cost could be much higher

Children walk past a school bus in Monterey Park, Calif., on April 28, 2017. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Soaring inflation has driven up the cost of raising a child from birth to 17 years old by around $1,530 per year to a total of over $300,000, according to a Brookings Institution estimate provided to The Wall Street Journal.

The analysis shows that, when inflation was running at around the Fed’s 2 percent target, a married middle-income couple with two kids would spend a total of around $284,594 for the first 17 years of a child born in 2015, or around $16,741 per year.