As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Fort Lauderdale ranks the 144th largest city in the nation.

Broward County is one of the most concentrated regional childcare markets in the dataset: every Broward city in this index — Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, Coral Springs, Miramar, Hollywood — draws on the same county-wide supply pool, pays workers the same $15.30 an hour, and pays $14,750 for a year of infant tuition. The variable is local income. Fort Lauderdale's $79,935 median, slightly above the national figure, holds cost-of-care to 18.5% of pre-tax pay and lifts the city's overall score to fifth in Florida. Strain is muted, working mothers participate at 76.7%, and the urban core looks orderly on the data. Underneath, the same Broward workforce earns 59.2% of a single-adult living wage.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

Moderate-tier 63/100, ranked 30 of 250 — fifth in Florida; affordability 78 on $79,935 household income.
Mothers' LFP 76.7% — above national and state rates, notable for an urban core; family strain 69.
Workers earn $15.30/hr at 59.2% of a $25.86 living wage — the structural Broward drag, identical across every Broward city.

Actionable takeaways

Fort Lauderdale is the Broward control case. Five Broward cities in this index — Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, Coral Springs, Miramar, Hollywood — share a $14,750 tuition, $15.30 wage, and 387-establishment supply pool. Local household income is the only differentiator. Fort Lauderdale's $79,935 median is the urban-core anchor.
Mothers' LFP at 76.7% in an urban core is structurally unusual. Most urban cores in this report cluster lower; Fort Lauderdale's pattern looks suburban — a knowledge-economy city center supported by Broward's surrounding higher-income wards.
The 37.2% single-parent share quietly cuts the high-income reading. Above national and FL averages, even with $80K median — meaning the affordability score (78) is averaging across a more bifurcated household-structure base than peer cities.

Affordability — 78/100

A year of infant center care in Broward County runs about $14,750 — meaningfully above the Florida state average of $13,439 and reflecting metro South Florida pricing. Fort Lauderdale's Moderate-leaning-Strong score on affordability is an income story. Median household income in the city is $79,935 — roughly $8,200 above the Florida median and slightly above the national median — which puts the cost-of-care-as-share-of-income at 18.5%. That is below the 21.9% national share and below the Florida state average of 18.7%.

The childcare-to-rent ratio is 0.69. A typical Fort Lauderdale family pays roughly $1,229 per month for infant care against $1,776 in median gross rent. For a family at the city median, infant tuition consumes a slightly smaller share of pre-tax income than the national norm, even though the dollar price tag is higher than the national median. Family child care homes ($11,155/year for an infant) provide a meaningful step down for families with two children in care.

Supply — 59/100

Broward County has roughly 55 licensed center slots for every 100 children under five with working parents — short of full coverage but comfortably above the desert threshold. With about 132,000 kids under five whose parents work and roughly 73,100 estimated licensed slots county-wide, nearly half of the demand-side population is in informal arrangements, on a waitlist, or with a parent who has stepped back from work.

Broward's 387 licensed establishments produce 3.6 per 1,000 young children — slightly below the Florida (4.05) and national (4.21) averages. As Broward's urban core and county seat, Fort Lauderdale draws on the same county-wide supply pool as the surrounding suburbs of Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Coral Springs, and Hollywood. The constraint is most visible at the infant tier and during peak fall enrollment.

Workforce — 28/100

Fort Lauderdale childcare workers earn a median of $15.30/hr, or about $31,810 a year for full-time work. That is 59.2% of the local single-adult living wage of $25.86/hr — the lowest workforce reading among Fort Lauderdale's five dimensions and identical across every Broward city in this report.

A worker earning $15.30/hr in a metro with $1,776 rents and $14,750 infant tuition is absorbing the gap families don't see on the invoice. Centers that try to raise wages must raise tuition into a price band that even Fort Lauderdale's relatively high incomes would feel; centers that try to hold tuition can't retain staff. The Moderate-tier overall ranking comes with that structural footnote.

Family strain — 69/100

76.7% of Fort Lauderdale mothers with children under six are in the labor force — well above the 68.2% national rate and above Florida's 69.6%. In a city with a $80K median household income and a sizable knowledge-economy and tourism workforce, that figure reads as evidence of accessible care arrangements, not pure economic necessity.

The single-parent share is 37.2% — above the national average (31.8%) and slightly above the Florida average (35.0%). That cuts against the high-income reading: a meaningful share of Fort Lauderdale's working mothers are also the household's only adult earner, raising the stakes of a center closure or a sick week.

Policy support — 69/100

Florida's Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten reaches 65% of 4-year-olds — among the broadest reach in the country — but at $2,838 per child in state spending, the program is funded at less than half the national per-child average. NIEER credits Florida with 5 of 10 quality benchmarks. CCDF subsidy reach is 30.5%, serving roughly 113,000 Florida children monthly. Florida has no state paid family leave. Policy support is measured at the state level; the score is identical for Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville.

In-home care in Fort Lauderdale

In-home care in Fort Lauderdale typically reflects the broader Broward and South Florida nanny market, with full-time live-out rates in line with metro Miami-Fort Lauderdale norms. Demand is concentrated in the dual-earner households driving the city's 77% mothers' labor force participation. Nanny shares between two families are a familiar workaround for infant care, where Broward's slot density runs below the state average. Au pair placements through the State Department's J-1 sponsor agencies are a smaller but growing channel for families wanting full-time in-home coverage at a different cost structure than a sole-charge nanny.

Methodology: The the score is a 0-100 composite score across five dimensions: Affordability (30 pts), Supply (25 pts), Workforce Health (15 pts), Family Strain (15 pts), and Policy Support (15 pts). City-level prices and supply use the city's primary containing county. Policy Support is measured at the state level. Full methodology and data sources: beverly.io/research/methodology.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates; U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau National Database of Childcare Prices; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS (May 2024) and QCEW; Buffett Early Childhood Institute / Bipartisan Policy Center / Child Care Aware childcaregap.org (Sept 2025); NIEER State of Preschool Yearbook 2024; HHS ACF CCDF FY2023; National Partnership for Women & Families (March 2026).

Methodology. The State of Childcare Index is a 0-100 composite score across five dimensions: Affordability (30 pts), Supply (25 pts), Workforce Health (15 pts), Family Strain (15 pts), and Policy Support (15 pts). Each dimension draws on publicly available federal data: U.S. Census ACS (5-year), DOL Women's Bureau NDCP, BLS OEWS and QCEW, the Buffett/BPC/CCAoA childcaregap.org dataset, NIEER State of Preschool, and HHS ACF CCDF reports. City-level prices and supply use the city's primary containing county. Policy Support is measured at the state level. Full methodology and data sources: /research/methodology.