Cost of raising children in California is going up, new research shows

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) –The cost of living in California is driving up the cost of raising children in the Golden State, new from SmartAsset shows.

The study, published in July, shows that the San Francisco Bay Area is the most expensive place to raise a child in the United States. Families in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area will pay $43,171 in 2026 to raise a kid there, followed closely by families in nearby San Jose. Families in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area will pay $41,817 to raise a child there this year. That put the San Jose metropolitan area at the third-most expensive place in the country to raise a kid, that study shows.

Costs are up by 10.75% in the San Francisco area over last year compared to 10.43% for families in the San Jose area, according to the study.

“The big takeaway for California is probably not surprising,” Toby Nelson, a researcher for SmartAsset, told The Center Square. “It is more expensive than most of the rest of the country for parents raising a small child.”

Child care, the cost of food and other expenses are some of the main reasons for why the cost of raising a child is going up, Nelson said.

The study didn’t attempt to answer why one area is more expensive than any other area, Nelson said, but that California does face a perfect storm of high incomes and strong labor demand, which collides with strained housing supply and other challenges.

“So those expenses are going to raise wages and operating costs for things like child care, health care, food and housing,” Nelson added.

Other California metropolitan areas that ranked high in SmartAsset’s study included the San Diego area, where parents are expected to pay $34,705 this year, Sacramento, where families will pay $33,299 in 2026 and Los Angeles, which will see parents pay $32,191.

The last California metropolitan area included in the study was the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area. Parents there will pay $30,883 to raise a child there this year, according to the study.

All areas in California included in the study saw the cost of raising children go up over 2025.

“I think the numbers I just saw reflected are accurate,” Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-La Palma and a member of the Assembly Child Care Cost Committee, told The Center Square Tuesday. “We have seen an increase in child care, and I think it definitely is weighing on young individuals when they decide if they want to start a family or not.”

Quirk-Silva, who read the SmartAsset study, also said that the cost of just child care alone can reach $2,000 per child per month, especially for infant care. That puts paid child care out of reach for many young families, she said.

“Some of the basic services and needs individuals need, not only to survive, are going up,” Quirk-Silva said. “What we were talking about two years ago for a two-bedroom, one bath, being $2,000 a month, we’re now seeing that getting closer to $3,000 a month. When you talk about adding a child to a family, this really puts the pressure on of how they are going to sustain that.”