As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Miramar ranks the 202nd largest city in the nation.

More than four-fifths of Miramar mothers with children under six are in the workforce — 83.1%, among the highest readings in the index. The Broward suburb posts the third-best score in Florida and lands 16th nationally because a $86,109 median household income, $7,500 above the national figure, holds infant care at 17.1% of pre-tax pay against the same Broward county price every neighbor pays. Miramar reads as a city where working parents have built schedules that hold. Beneath the strain score sits the standard Broward footnote: the workforce providing the care earns $15.30 an hour against a $25.86 living wage, a 28/100 reading identical across every Broward city in this report.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

Strong-tier 66/100, ranked 16 of 250 — third in Florida; family strain 72 on $86,109 household income.
Mothers' LFP 83.1% — among the highest in any large US city, well above national 68.2% and Florida 69.6%.
Same Broward county tuition ($14,750) as Hollywood; consumes 17.1% of income here vs 22.6% there.

Actionable takeaways

83.1% mothers' LFP is the highest reading among the 30 Southern cities and approaches the national ceiling. Miramar shows what suburban Broward looks like when income, family structure, and access align — a useful upper bound for what's achievable inside Florida's policy floor.
Miramar-Hollywood is the cleanest income-only natural experiment in the index. Adjacent cities, identical tuition ($14,750), identical workforce wage ($15.30/hr), identical supply pool — the only variable is $20,750 of household income. The 17.1% vs. 22.6% cost-burden gap is what that variable produces.
The 37.9% single-parent share is the quiet check on the score. Above the national and FL averages, even at $86,109 median — meaning Miramar's strong reading conceals a significant subset of households for whom one center closure resets the budget.

Affordability — 87/100

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. Miramar's Strong affordability score reflects local incomes more than local prices. Median household income in the city is $86,109 — roughly $14,400 above the Florida median and $7,500 above the national median — which compresses the cost-of-care-to-income ratio to 17.1%, well below the 21.9% national share.

The childcare-to-rent ratio is 0.63. A typical Miramar family pays roughly $1,229 per month for infant care against $1,954 in median gross rent. For a family at the city median, infant tuition consumes roughly $1,800 less per year as a share of income than the national norm. Family child care homes ($11,155/year for an infant) offer a meaningful alternative for families with two children in care, where the price gap compounds.

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. For Miramar specifically, that constraint is harder to feel than the math implies: 83% of the city's mothers with young children are in the workforce, suggesting most have found an arrangement that works. The constraint is most visible at the infant tier and during peak enrollment windows.

Workforce — 28/100

Miramar 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 the weakest of Miramar's five dimensions and identical across every Broward city in this report.

A worker earning $15.30/hr in a metro with $1,954 rents and $14,750 infant tuition is absorbing the gap families don't see on the invoice. Centers raising wages must raise tuition; centers holding tuition can't retain staff. The Strong-tier overall ranking comes with a structural footnote: the city's affordability is partly underwritten by Broward's underpaid workforce.

Family strain — 72/100

83.1% of Miramar mothers with children under six are in the labor force — among the highest readings in the index dataset, well above the 68.2% national rate and Florida's 69.6%. In a city with a $86K median household income, that figure reads as evidence of accessible childcare arrangements, not pure economic necessity. Working parents in Miramar have built schedules that hold.

The single-parent share is 37.9% — 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 Miramar's working mothers are also the household's only adult earner, which raises 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 Miramar, Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville.

In-home care in Miramar

In-home care in Miramar 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 among the dual-earner households driving the city's 83% mothers' labor force participation. Nanny shares between two families are a familiar workaround for infant care, particularly given Broward's slot density running 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.