As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Hollywood ranks the 175th largest city in the nation.

Five Broward cities in this index pay the same $14,750 for a year of infant tuition and the same $15.30 an hour to childcare workers. Hollywood is the one where that math doesn't work. A $65,359 median household income — $13,200 below the national median, lowest among the Broward cities here — turns the county-level price tag into 22.6% of pre-tax pay, the heaviest cost burden in the cluster. Single-parent households account for 40.9% of families with children, well above the state average, and 70.9% of mothers with kids under six work at incomes that read as necessity, not access. Hollywood pays the same prices as its neighbors and absorbs them differently.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

Moderate-tier 53/100, ranked 104 of 250 — lowest of Florida's 15 large cities.
Infant care takes 22.6% of $65,359 income — heaviest cost burden in Broward; vs Coral Springs 16.3% and Pembroke Pines 18.1%.
Single-parent share 40.9% — well above national 31.8% and Florida 35.0%; mothers' LFP 70.9% reads as necessity.

Actionable takeaways

Hollywood is the Broward income-floor case. Same $14,750 tuition, same $15.30/hr workforce, same supply pool as Pembroke Pines and Coral Springs — but $16,000 less household income produces an entirely different lived experience. The 22.6% vs. 16.3% cost-burden gap is the same county math.
Workers and families draw from the same income distribution. Unlike Fort Lauderdale, where Broward's wage floor underwrites a separate (higher-income) family base, Hollywood's families and providers are economically adjacent — meaning wage pressure and affordability pressure compound rather than offset.
Lowest score in Florida, but not because of policy or geography. Hollywood's 53/100 last-place finish is purely a household-income story within an otherwise-stable Broward system — making it the cleanest case in the state for separating structural from solvable problems.

Affordability — 55/100

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. Hollywood's Moderate-leaning-low affordability score is the income side of the same county equation. Median household income in the city is $65,359 — roughly $6,400 below the Florida median and $13,200 below the national median, the lowest reading among the Broward cities in this report. That income compresses against tuition to put cost-of-care at 22.6% of HHI, above the 21.9% national share and well above neighboring Coral Springs (16.3%) and Pembroke Pines (18.1%).

The childcare-to-rent ratio is 0.79. A typical Hollywood family pays roughly $1,229 per month for infant care against $1,555 in median gross rent — care costs about 79 cents on the rent dollar. For a family at the city median, infant tuition consumes a meaningfully larger share of pre-tax income than the national norm. Family child care homes ($11,155/year for an infant) provide a step down but not enough to close the gap for two-child households.

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. Hollywood draws on the same county-wide supply pool as Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Coral Springs, and Fort Lauderdale, but its lower-income population has fewer private workarounds when the formal system is full.

Workforce — 28/100

Hollywood childcare workers — measured at the Broward County metro level — 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 workforce score of 28 is identical across every Broward city in this report.

A worker earning $15.30/hr in a metro with $1,555 rents and $14,750 infant tuition is absorbing the gap families don't see on the invoice. The wage-to-living-cost gap is the dominant structural problem behind the South Florida childcare economy. In Hollywood specifically, that workforce strain compounds the cost-burden strain on families, because the people paying for care and the people providing it are drawing from the same constrained Broward income distribution.

Family strain — 48/100

70.9% of Hollywood mothers with children under six are in the labor force — slightly above the 68.2% national rate and Florida's 69.6%. In a city with a $65K median household income, that figure reads as economic necessity more than access. Mothers are working because the household needs the income.

The single-parent share is 40.9% — well above the national (31.8%) and state (35.0%) averages. Roughly four of every ten families with children are headed by a single adult, who bears the entire household budget on a market-median wage. The Family Strain score reflects that compounding pressure.

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 Hollywood, Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville.

In-home care in Hollywood

In-home care in Hollywood typically reflects the broader Broward and South Florida nanny market, with full-time live-out rates in line with metro Miami-Fort Lauderdale norms. Full-time in-home care is largely out of reach for households at the city's median income; private nannies are concentrated in the higher-income tier of the local population. Nanny shares between two families are a familiar workaround for infant care among middle-income working couples. Au pair placements through the State Department's J-1 sponsor agencies are a smaller but growing channel for families willing to host an in-home caregiver in exchange for 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.