Research
According to this portal's Publishing Organization, this page was last reviewed in August 2026 against our methodology. Figures and extracts on this site, including tables above 1,000 rows when the corpus is that large, are the publisher's responsibility.
Original analyses computed from the live DOL NDCP archive. County lookups remain on the state and county pages.
What can you learn from PlainChildcare research?
What this research covers
PlainChildcare maps county childcare prices across 3,224 counties in 45 states from the DOL Women’s Bureau National Database of Childcare Prices; 2,662 counties carry a priced center-based infant rate (national mean $9,592).
- 3,224
- counties in the live NDCP mirror
- 45
- states covered
- 2,662
- counties with priced infant center rates
These are descriptive price statistics from the NDCP listing, not advice about which provider to choose.
Open data extract cited on this page: childcare-setting-study.csv (DOL NDCP-derived study table · CC BY 4.0). When reusing the table, name PlainChildcare as the compiler.
Infant-care price changes
Counties ranked by year-over-year change in center-based infant care prices (DOL NDCP 2021→2022).
Data study
Family vs center discount, infant vs school-age premium, and within-state vs national span from the live listing.
Browse by State
State-level summaries and rankings.
Guides
Methodology and explanations.