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Personal FinanceChildbirth

Insurance is hiding how expensive it is to have a kid: Nearly $20,000 for every baby born in the U.S.

By
Chloe Berger
Chloe Berger
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July 13, 2022, 2:58 PM ET
Mother with newborn
It costs how much to give birth?Getty Images

In the words of Destiny’s Child: Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my telephone bills? Do you pay my health care bills incurred at birth? 

The baby-delivering stork now leaves with an expensive invoice, as being a parent involves many responsibilities and hefty bills (bills, bills). Simply, the cost of having a child in the U.S. costs, on average, about $20,000, according to a new analysis by national health nonprofit, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).

KFF compared the cost of health care claims over three years between women ages 15 to 49 who gave birth and women who didn’t. The first cohort experienced an extra $18,865 in health care bills in claims from 2018 to 2020. For women covered with large employer plans, insurance usually covers around $16,011 of this bill, leaving women with an out-of-pocket childbirth bill of $2,854. 

Price variations occurred, with C-sections costing women more than vaginal delivery, on average $26,280 and $3,214 out of pocket, as well as $14,768 and $2,655 out of pocket, respectively.

The cost of living has increased over the years, making the expense of paying for dependents also more expensive. Affording childcare can set many working parents back. About 59% of U.S. parents reported to care.com that they spend more than 20% of their income on childcare costs.

And factoring in inflation, having and raising a middle-class child will cost parents in the U.S. upwards of $280,000. As billionaires wonder why the birth rate is declining, millennials push back expensive life milestones, in part, due to debt. 

As young adults deal with finance issues, more report that they’ll not have kids in the future, with the number of nonparents saying that they’re not likely or not at all likely to have kids increasing from 37% to 44% from 2018 to 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.

With the news of Roe v. Wade being overturned, many women and childbearing individuals will be saddled with the cost of having a child, starting at birth with a bill of almost $3,000.

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