“$286,000/year to raise two children in the US according”
What are those kids doing, vacationing in the Alps or the French Riviera all summer long?
Dining in fine restaurants every night of the week?
That means a couple would have to clear more than $500,000 per year if all four were to live comfortably.
This number can’t be right. I know couples who are both physicians and they don’t make that.
When I’ve seen these amounts before, it’s to raise a child, or two, to the age of 18.
It might be right. Assuming ages 0-22 that is $7.5K per year per kid. If the total includes college, it might be cheap, at that.
>> This number can’t be right
Agreed in terms of household income.
But if dividing defense budgets, pensions, etc by the number of children in the Country, then maybe yes.
Its not right. I figured it out once, @15 years ago, for us living in San Francisco (so quite a lot higher than the general case). Essential costs, leaving out private school and music lessons and etc., plus with stay at home mom, was @$12,000 a year per child, and mostly had to do with extra housing in terms of rent or mortgage. Extra food and books and toys and medical insurance and clothes and restaurants and etc was minimal.
I have raised four and it doesn’t cost a fraction of that.
I have a theory the government puts the trash information out there to “scare” people into not having kids.
But even if it was true, that’s spent over decades. And even stopping ONE minor bad habit like smoking a pack a day can add up to over a million over a lifetime.