As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Indiana has 2 cities among the largest 250 in the nation.
Center-based infant care in Indiana costs $17,302 a year — almost exactly the national average — and consumes 24.7% of a typical Indiana household's pre-tax income, the worst affordability ratio in the entire 50-state index. The state's licensed childcare system covers barely half of estimated demand, a 46% gap that ranks among the worst in the country. Indiana finishes 50th of 50 jurisdictions on the 2026 index. The Indiana arithmetic does not break because prices are extraordinary; it breaks because the household-income denominator is small, and middling tuition lands disproportionately on Indiana paychecks. State policy partly compensates — CCDF subsidies reach 43% of eligible kids, one of the higher rates in the country — but pre-K access of 9% and a 7/100 affordability score leave little room for the rest of the picture to recover.
Key highlights & actionable takeaways
- Crisis (30/100), ranked 50th of 50 jurisdictions — the worst-performing of the 12 Midwestern states.
- Infant care consumes 24.7% of median income — the worst affordability ratio in the entire 50-state index; affordability score of 7/100.
- Slot gap of 46% is twenty points worse than the national rate; CCDF subsidies cover 43% of eligible kids, the one bright spot.
Affordability — 7/100
A center-based infant slot in Indiana runs $17,302 a year — just above the $17,163 national figure but far above what the state's $70,051 median household income can absorb. Infant care consumes 24.7% of pre-tax median income, among the highest such shares of any state in the index. The childcare-to-rent ratio reaches 1.41 — the average Indiana family with one infant in center care spends roughly 40% more on childcare than on housing each month, well above the 1.06 national ratio. Toddler care runs $16,802; preschool, $13,158. Family child care offers some relief at $9,983 for infants — about $7,300 below center pricing — but still represents 14% of median household income on its own. Indiana is one of the four "NDCP gap" states with no county-level childcare price data; the state-level CCAoA 2024 figure is the best available baseline. Indiana families don't have a pricing problem in isolation; they have a pricing problem layered on top of the second-lowest household-income base in the Midwest. The math doesn't work because the denominator is small — center prices that would feel manageable in Minnesota or Illinois land disproportionately on Indiana paychecks. The state's 7/100 affordability score is among the lowest dimension scores anywhere in the index.
Supply — 18/100
Indiana licensed 166,670 childcare slots against 320,950 children with potential need — a 46% gap, the second-largest in the Midwest after Missouri. Of the 510,056 kids under five with all parents working, the licensed system can serve roughly half at full enrollment. The state operates 1,306 licensed establishments at 3.17 per 1,000 children under five, well below the 4.21 national rate and tied with Michigan as the Midwest's least-dense supply geography. Indiana isn't classified as a desert at the state level, but the supply pressure is broad-based — there is no metro in the state where capacity comfortably matches demand. The supply gap and the affordability gap reinforce each other: high prices deter enrollment, falling enrollment thins provider revenue, and providers exit. A Crisis-tier state on Affordability is almost always a Crisis-tier state on Supply, and Indiana is no exception.
Workforce — 65/100
Indiana pays its childcare workforce $14.11/hour at the median, slightly below the $15.41 national figure but reaching 64.8% of the state's $21.79 living wage for a single adult — almost identical to the 62.6% national share. Annual median pay sits at $29,340 across 8,790 workers in the occupation. The Workforce dimension is Indiana's strongest, but that strength is relative rather than absolute — the wage-to-living-wage ratio is structurally broken everywhere in the country, and Indiana's score reflects that the state is no worse on this dimension than the national average. It does not reflect a workforce that earns enough to live independently in the communities where it works.
Family Strain — 39/100
Indiana mothers of children under six participate in the labor force at 67.7% — within a fraction of the 68.2% national rate. Single-parent households make up 32.9% of families with kids under 18, just above the 31.8% national figure. The Family Strain dimension lands in Strained territory because the underlying numbers track the national average — there's no demographic cushion compensating for the affordability and supply collapses. Indiana doesn't enjoy the Plains-state pattern of high mothers' LFP that lifts Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas above their cost-of-care headwinds.
Policy Support — 51/100
Indiana enrolls only 9% of 4-year-olds in state pre-K and 0% of 3-year-olds — the program is a small footprint with only 2 of NIEER's 10 quality benchmarks met. What it lacks in scale it partially makes up in per-child investment: $10,023 per enrolled child is among the higher figures nationally, but the access denominator is so small that the dimension impact is muted. CCDF subsidies reach 43.0% of eligible children (about 44,000 monthly), one of the higher coverage rates in the index — the state has prioritized subsidy reach over universal pre-K. Indiana has no paid family leave program. Head Start serves another 12,373 children. Policy is the only dimension where Indiana clears the national midpoint, and it does so on the strength of subsidy reach rather than pre-K access.
City spotlight
Indianapolis scores 34/100 (Crisis, #237 of 250) — the lower of the two Indiana cities in the index and the metro that anchors the state's overall ranking. Marion County's cost basis tracks closely to the state average because Indiana lacks county-level NDCP data; the Indianapolis profile is essentially the Indiana profile with a bigger denominator. Fort Wayne scores 28/100 (Crisis, #245 of 250) — one of the ten lowest-ranked cities in the entire index, where the combination of state-average pricing and below-state-average household income produces the worst outcome of any Midwest city.
In-home care in Indiana
Beverly Research perspective: Indiana's in-home care market is small and mostly concentrated in the Indianapolis metro and the Chicago-adjacent northwest counties. The state's combination of high effective childcare costs and middle-tier household incomes leaves a narrow band of families who can absorb the $50,000+ annual cost of full-time in-home care — that band exists, but it's smaller than in higher-income Midwest metros like Chicago, Minneapolis, or the Twin Cities. Full-time live-out nanny rates in central Indiana typically run $18-25/hour for one child; nanny shares are an increasingly common workaround for families who would prefer center care but cannot find an open infant slot. Au pair placements appear in pockets but remain a niche option statewide.
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). State-level prices and supply use population-weighted county aggregates. Policy Support is measured at the state level. Indiana is one of four states without county-level NDCP coverage; state-average pricing is used for all Indiana cities. 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; Child Care Aware of America 2024 (NDCP gap state); 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).