As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, New Jersey has 5 cities among the largest 250 in the nation.
Jersey City ranks fourth of 250 US cities for childcare — behind only three others in the entire dataset. Its $144,000 median household income produces an Affordability score of 98.4, almost the ceiling. Across the Hudson, Manhattan ranks 219th. The same nanny crosses the river each morning to a different childcare universe. New Jersey's 62/100 state score, seventh nationally, rests on the legacy of Abbott v. Burke: $17,911 in per-pupil pre-K spending, third-highest in America, and a CCDF subsidy reaching 46.2% of eligible kids monthly. The state has, alone in the Northeast outside New Hampshire and Vermont, broken into the national top 10. Yet childcare workers earn 60.3% of a living wage — below the national norm. The data below traces what the Garden State's policy investment buys, and what it does not.
Key highlights & actionable takeaways
- Moderate (62/100), 7th nationally; the only Northeast state outside New Hampshire and Vermont in the top 10.
- Jersey City ranks 4 of 250 US cities — the strongest urban childcare environment in the dataset's top tier.
- Per-pupil pre-K spending of $17,911 — third nationally; childcare workers still earn just 60.3% of a living wage.
Affordability — 63/100
New Jersey is the rare high-cost state where Affordability lands above 50. Center infant care averages $18,539 a year (NDCP, forward-projected to 2025) — about $1,400 above the national price — but the state's $101,050 median household income (the second-highest in America after Maryland) absorbs the cost. Infant care eats 18.3% of household income, materially below the 21.9% national average. The Affordability score of 63.4 is the strongest in the Northeast.
The childcare-to-rent ratio of 0.93 is also unusual: in New Jersey, the median family with one infant in a center pays slightly less for care than for housing. That is a low bar, but only six US states meet it. The state's high housing costs create that ratio inversion, but they do not change the underlying truth: childcare in New Jersey is genuinely more accessible to median-earning families than in any of its Northeast peers.
The picture varies sharply by county. Hudson and Bergen — the high-income, transit-connected NYC adjacencies — track closer to Manhattan prices ($25,000-$30,000 for infant care). South Jersey from Camden through Atlantic City lands well below the state average. The state-level affordability score reflects a high-income population that can largely absorb the regional price structure, not a price structure that is itself moderate.
A typical New Jersey family with one infant in center care spends about $3,400 less annually than a Massachusetts family — and earns roughly the same income.
Supply — 59/100
Supply scores 58.8 — middle of the pack. New Jersey has 2,420 licensed childcare establishments — 4.6 per 1,000 kids under 5, slightly above the national 4.21 — and 372,530 licensed slots. The state's BPC supply gap of 18.4% is one of the lowest in the country, well below the national 27% gap.
That gap figure is the data point that most distinguishes New Jersey. The state has built or licensed enough capacity to come close to meeting demand on aggregate — a function of decades of public Abbott-era pre-K investment that pulled three- and four-year-olds out of private centers and into school-based programs, freeing center capacity for the under-3 cohort. The supply count is meaningful even if it understates urban tightness in Hudson, Essex, and Union counties, where the slot count and the demand are densest.
The supply score is held back by the geographic mismatch. Slots exist in suburban Burlington, Mercer, and Morris counties; demand is concentrated in the urban corridor and along the NYC commuter belt. For a Jersey City family with both parents working in Manhattan, the practical supply picture is far tighter than the state aggregate suggests.
Workforce — 27/100
New Jersey's childcare workforce earns $16.49 an hour — $34,290 a year — covering 60.3% of the state's $27.35 single-adult living wage. That puts wages two points below the national 62.6% benchmark, and it gives the state a Workforce Health score of just 26.5 — the second-weakest of the five dimensions.
The workforce story in New Jersey is structurally similar to New York's: high state living-wage benchmarks pull the comparison ratio down even though dollar wages are above-national. A worker in Newark or Paterson earning $34,000 cannot live in those cities on that wage. The state's heavily public pre-K workforce — paid on school district scales of $50,000-$70,000 with benefits — has effectively created a two-tier childcare labor market: pre-K teachers in school settings earn living wages, infant-and-toddler teachers in private centers do not.
This tier split is the central labor-market feature of the New Jersey system. The state's pre-K success has not lifted wages for the workers caring for the youngest children, and it has arguably suppressed them by absorbing the higher-wage opportunities into the school district sector.
Family Strain — 82/100
Family Strain is New Jersey's strongest dimension at 82.4 — among the highest scores any state earns. Mothers' labor force participation for kids under 6 is 73.6%, well above national. The single-parent share is 27.8% — the lowest of the nine Northeast states. Median household income is $101,050.
Translate: New Jersey has more two-parent, two-earner households with school-age children than nearly any state. The combination of high household income, low single-parent share, and strong labor force participation reads as economic stability for the typical family. Where strain exists, it is concentrated — Camden, Newark, and Paterson have very different household economic profiles — but the state-level picture is genuinely strong.
Policy Support — 81/100
Policy Support scores 81.4 — the highest of any state in our nine-state Northeast set, and among the top 5 nationally. The driver is New Jersey's pre-K infrastructure, the legacy of the Abbott v. Burke school equity rulings: 34% of 4-year-olds and 24% of 3-year-olds are enrolled in state pre-K, with per-pupil spending of $17,911 — third-highest in the country, behind only DC and Oregon — and 9 of 10 NIEER quality benchmarks met.
CCDF reaches 46.2% of eligible children monthly, also among the highest in the nation, serving 37,100 kids. Paid Family Leave provides 12 weeks. The state's policy infrastructure is, by any measure, the most developed in the Northeast and one of the most developed in America. Where New York chose breadth (universal pre-K reaching 56% of 4-year-olds at $6,285 per child), New Jersey chose depth (reaching 34% of 4-year-olds at $17,911 per child). Both are real policy commitments; New Jersey's spending-per-child is nearly triple New York's.
City spotlight
Jersey City ranks 4th of 250 US cities at score 72 (Strong) — the highest score of any city in any of our nine Northeast states. Affordability scores 98.4 (the result of its $144,000 median household income running well ahead of Hudson County childcare prices) and Supply scores 88.6.
Lakewood ranks 121 nationally at score 51 (Moderate). The city's Family Strain score of 91.0 is among the highest in the country, reflecting its unusually low single-parent share — a function of its large Orthodox Jewish community, where two-parent households are the strong norm and extended family caregiving supplements paid care.
Elizabeth anchors the bottom at score 35 (Strained), ranked 234 nationally — held down by Affordability of 11.6 and Family Strain of 14.1 reflecting the city's lower household incomes against the state's strong policy floor.
In-home care in New Jersey
New Jersey's in-home care market splits cleanly along the NYC commuter geography. Hudson, Bergen, Essex, and Morris counties function as extensions of the New York metro nanny market, with full-time nanny rates of $25-$35 an hour and a substantial nanny share economy that mirrors Park Slope and the Upper West Side. Career nannies in Short Hills, Montclair, and Princeton routinely earn $70,000-$95,000 with benefits.
The au pair market is comparatively strong in New Jersey relative to other Northeast states, in part because suburban housing stock supports live-in arrangements better than NYC apartment housing does. Bergen, Morris, Somerset, and Monmouth counties together host more au pair placements than any equivalent geography outside metro DC.
South Jersey — Camden through Cape May — operates as a different market entirely, with rates closer to Philadelphia metro pricing ($18-$25 an hour) and a much thinner career-nanny pipeline. Center care still dominates the under-3 picture in this part of the state, supported by the Abbott-era infrastructure.
New Jersey's domestic worker bill of rights, enacted in 2024, gave the state one of the most protective legal frameworks for household employees in the country — including written contract requirements, overtime mandates, and explicit anti-discrimination protections. Implementation across the state's heavily fragmented private nanny market has been uneven, but the framework has measurably formalized the high-end Bergen and Hudson County employer base. Agencies operating in those counties report a marked shift toward written contracts and on-the-books payroll over the past 18 months.
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 Policy Support is inherited by all cities in the state. 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; Bipartisan Policy Center childcaregap.org (Sept 2025); NIEER State of Preschool Yearbook 2024; HHS ACF CCDF FY2023; National Partnership for Women & Families (March 2026).