It now costs more than $300,000 to raise a child, analysis states

It now costs $310,605 for a married middle-income couple with two children to raise their youngest child from birth through high school, according to a recent estimate from the Brookings Institution.

Brookings Institution notes that higher inflation is the culprit of the increasing price of living.

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“Due to higher inflation, a middle-income married family with two children will now spend $26,011 more to raise a child to the age of 17,” the analysis said.

They found that a middle-income family might spend more than $18,000 a year on average, as inflation hits food, housing, haircuts and sports.

Related: Gen Z, millennials speak out on reluctance to become parents

Rising costs, among other things, are leading Gen Z and millennials to think twice about rushing to have children.

Other reasons for not wanting to give birth include the climate crisis, genetic health conditions, the pandemic, and overwhelming student debt.

In 2021, 44 percent of non-parents of child-rearing age said that they were unlikely to have children someday, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The number of births in the U.S. dropped in 2020 to its lowest level since 1979.

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The analysis from the Brookings Institution analyzed the Department of Agriculture’s 2015 estimate for the cost of raising a child and ran the numbers to account for inflation since then. Since 2020 alone, the higher pace of inflation has added about $26,000 to the cost of raising a child, according to the analysis.