As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Carrollton ranks the 200th largest city in the nation.

In a DFW suburb of 133,000 straddling Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties, 74% of mothers with children under six work — six points above the national rate — and the single-parent share is just 23%, well below the national 32%. A Carrollton family pays the standard $13,045 a year for infant center care against a $99,115 median household income, roughly 26% above the national figure. The arithmetic produces a 13.2% childcare cost burden, well inside the Strong band of Beverly's the score. Carrollton scores 67/100, ranking 14th nationally and eighth in Texas. The profile mirrors the broader Plano-Frisco belt: tech, finance, and corporate-services households that hire dual-income, marry, and stay together at rates well above the regional baseline. Childcare here is a logistics line, not a survival line.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

14th nationally, score 67 (Strong) — DFW suburb of 133,000 across Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties.
Mothers' LFP 74%, six points above national; single-parent share 23%, well below the 32% national figure.
Infant care eats 13.2% of $99,115 median income — moderate Dallas pricing meeting Plano-Frisco belt income lines.

Actionable takeaways

Carrollton is the Plano-Frisco belt's tri-county outlier. Straddling Dallas, Denton, and Collin, the city extends the high-income suburban pattern westward — but on Dallas County's lower price footprint. The result is a top-15 national finish and a quietly different economic story than Frisco proper.
The 74% mothers' labor-force rate ties Mesquite for the cluster top, with a completely different driver. Where Mesquite is necessity, Carrollton is engineered dual-earner stability — same number, opposite dynamic. Local follow-ups should compare retention at large Carrollton employers (Halliburton, McKesson) against Plano peers.
Watch tri-county school-district waitlists. Carrollton families navigate Lewisville ISD, Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, and Plano ISD boundaries; pre-K and after-care capacity along district lines is the cleanest local-supply story.

Affordability — 96/100

Center-based infant care in Carrollton averages $13,045 a year, roughly $1,087 a month. Dallas County, the city's primary containing county, sits in the middle band of the national infant-care price distribution. What lifts Carrollton's affordability score into the top tier is the income side: median household income here is $99,115, roughly 26% above the national median and 30% above the Texas state median. Stack the two together and infant care eats 13.2% of household income — well under the national 21.9% burden, and inside the Strong band of the index.

Family child care runs $11,203 a year, only a modest discount on center care. Toddler center care comes in at $11,836, preschool at $10,838. A typical Carrollton family with one infant in center care pays about $4,100 less per year than the national median household pays for the same care — a function of moderate Dallas-area prices meeting an above-average suburban income line.

Supply — 53/100

Carrollton counts roughly 56 licensed slots for every 100 kids under five with working parents — a middling reading that the city shares with most of the Dallas County footprint. Establishment density is on the lighter side at 2.75 per thousand kids under five, reflecting the larger-center model that dominates the Plano-Frisco belt rather than a thin family-care market. This is not a childcare desert, but the supply scoring lands modestly because Dallas-area waitlists for infant rooms remain real, particularly inside the most-demanded school district boundaries.

Workforce — 33/100

Childcare workers in the Carrollton-Dallas County market earn a median $14.31 an hour — $29,760 a year, slightly above the Texas state median. The local single-adult living wage is $24.14 an hour, putting childcare wages at 59% of what one adult needs to live in Dallas County alone. The arithmetic is the familiar Texas suburban one: childcare workers cannot afford to live in the school districts where the families they serve send their own children. Texas, with no state-mandated paid leave and no income tax to fund a workforce subsidy, leaves wage levels to the regional market. The market sets it here.

Family strain — 85.7/100

Seventy-four percent of Carrollton mothers with kids under six are in the labor force — six points above the national 68% — and 73% of households with kids under six have all available parents working. The city's single-parent share, at 23%, is well below the national 32%. The combined picture is a city of two-earner married households where both parents work and child care is a logistics line, not a survival line. Carrollton's 85.7 strain score is one of the highest in this batch, reflecting the demographic engine that powers the Plano-Frisco belt: tech, finance, and corporate-services households that hire dual-income, marry, and stay together at rates well above the regional baseline.

Policy support — 48.1/100

Texas policy inherits down to Carrollton here. The state enrolls 52% of four-year-olds in pre-K and spends $4,682 per child, roughly two-thirds the spend of more policy-active states. Texas offers no state-mandated paid family leave. CCDF subsidy reach covers 16.4% of eligible kids statewide. Texas meets two of NIEER's ten quality benchmarks. Carrollton's national #14 ranking holds despite this dimension, not because of it — the city's affordability and family-strain scores carry a policy score that would otherwise sink it. Policy is measured at the state level.

In-home care in Carrollton

In-home care in Carrollton typically reflects the broader DFW nanny market — full-time live-out rates in the Plano-Frisco-Carrollton suburban belt run somewhat below the Highland Park / Park Cities band, with most families landing in line with regional north-Dallas suburban norms. Nanny shares between two families are an increasingly common solution for the under-three years, particularly inside the most-demanded school district pockets. Au pair hosting is well-established among the corporate-relocation households that define much of the local demographic, drawing on the State Department-designated J-1 sponsor agencies that maintain area coordinators across DFW.

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.