The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families found that average child care prices in the state have increased significantly for two consecutive years.
The DCF released its report on the 2025 child care market survey results on Tuesday. Monthly infant care costs increased by an average of 11% for families served by group providers and 10% for families with an infant in family-based care since last year, according to Gov.
Tony Evers' news release about the 2025 report. Family providers serve between four to eight children, while group providers serve nine or more children.
The increase rates are similar to last year’s child care market survey, in which the DCF reported that “Wisconsin families with an infant in center-based care are seeing an average 11% increase in monthly tuition prices, while Wisconsin families with an infant in family-based care are seeing an average 14% increase,” according to a July 2024 news release from Evers' office.
The report also found that the price hikes have decreased the buying power of the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program. Maximum Wisconsin Shares rates have remained the same since January 2022.
Wisconsin Shares’ buying power has steadily declined since 2022, when the Wisconsin Shares rate was at or above the price of 74% of child care slots. In 2023, the rate was at or above the price of 50% of slots, and in 2025 it is at or above the price of 41% of slots, according to the report. However, to be in line with an affordability threshold established at both the state and federal level, the Wisconsin Shares rate should be at or above the price of 75% of child care slots.
“In the modern world, both parents work in most families,” DCF Secretary
Jeff Pertl said. “I hear across the state how families need access to child care, but even when they can find it, it’s unaffordable. The most recent Market Rate Survey shows how child care has become a system of high costs for parents, low wages for staff and terrible margins for child care providers.”
The report states that it is important to note that in 2023, Child Care Counts payments were reduced to 50% of their original levels. Child Care Counts, a pandemic-era relief program for regulated child care providers, has helped providers pay for rent, utilities, classroom supplies and more. When those payments were reduced, some providers needed to raise costs for families as a result.
Child Care Counts is set to expire in June, and
about 100 Milwaukee child care providers are at risk of closing after that program ends.
Child Care Counts launched in March 2020 to distribute federal COVID-19 relief dollars, initially as emergency payments and then as “stabilization” payments, to child care providers. It was previously set to expire in January 2024, but Evers redirected emergency funding and pandemic response funds to extend the program.
Evers proposed a $340 million investment in his 2023-25 biennial budget to continue supporting child care providers through the CCC program, but the Republican-controlled state Legislature ultimately did not include those funds in the budget.
In his 2025-27 biennial budget, Evers proposed more than $500 million of investments in child care. This included $480 million to continue Child Care Counts. On May 8, the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee eliminated this proposed Child Care Counts funding from the budget bill.
