As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Richardson ranks the 233rd largest city in the nation.

In a Dallas County suburb of 118,000 anchored by UT Dallas and the AT&T research footprint along the Telecom Corridor, a Richardson family pays $13,045 a year for infant center care against a $96,257 median household income, roughly 23% above the national figure. The arithmetic produces a 13.6% childcare cost burden, well inside the Strong band of Beverly's the score. Richardson scores 62/100, ranking 43rd nationally and 15th in Texas. Mothers' labor-force participation runs 62% — the softest of the affluent DFW suburbs in this batch and six points below the national rate. With Richardson's median gross rent of $1,825 a month — the highest of the four DFW cities in this batch — and a long commute back into the Dallas core, a meaningful share of households still find the math works for one parent to scale back during the under-six years.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

43rd nationally, score 62 (Moderate) — Dallas County suburb of 118,000 on the Telecom Corridor.
Infant care eats 13.6% of $96,257 median income — well below the 21.9% national burden.
Mothers' LFP 62% — softest of the affluent DFW suburbs in this batch, six points below national.

Actionable takeaways

Richardson is the affluent DFW suburb where the second earner more often opts out. A 62% mothers' LFP — six points below national, well below Carrollton's 74% — sits inside Telecom Corridor incomes that should support participation. Reporters should ask whether the long commute back into the Dallas core or RISD school-feeder dynamics drive the gap.
Highest gross rent in the four-DFW-city batch sharpens the workforce gap further. The same metro $14.31 wage covers less inside Richardson than in Mesquite, Garland, or Grand Prairie. Local follow-ups should pull RISD childcare-staff turnover data alongside rent trends.
UT Dallas and AT&T anchor the income line. Reporters covering the Telecom Corridor's economic story should pair employer headcount with under-five enrollment in the most-demanded RISD elementary feeders.

Affordability — 96/100

Center-based infant care in Richardson averages $13,045 a year, roughly $1,087 a month. Dallas County, which Richardson sits inside, runs in the middle band of national infant-care prices and tracks the city's near neighbors Carrollton and Plano. The income side is what carries Richardson's affordability score into the top tier: median household income here is $96,257, roughly 23% above the national median and 26% above the Texas state median. Stack the two together and infant care eats 13.6% of household income, well inside the Strong band of the index.

Family child care comes in at $11,203 a year, a modest discount on center care. Toddler center care runs $11,836, preschool $10,838. A typical Richardson family with one infant in center care pays roughly $4,100 less per year than the national median household pays for the same care. The Telecom Corridor anchor — UT Dallas, the AT&T research footprint, and the broader north-Dallas tech employer base — produces the household-income line that does most of the affordability work here.

Supply — 53/100

Richardson counts roughly 56 licensed slots for every 100 kids under five with working parents, with 496 licensed establishments in its broader Dallas County footprint — a density of 2.75 per thousand kids under five. This is a middling supply reading rather than a strong one. Richardson sits inside the same Dallas County supply universe as Carrollton and the rest of the inner-DFW arc; waitlists for infant rooms remain real inside the most-demanded RISD elementary school feeder boundaries, even though the city is not formally a childcare desert.

Workforce — 33/100

Childcare workers in the 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 the county. The pattern matches every other affluent DFW suburb: workers cannot afford to live in the school districts where they care for the children of the families who can. Richardson's median gross rent of $1,825 a month is the highest of the four DFW cities in this batch, which sharpens the worker-housing math further. Texas offers no state-funded workforce supplement.

Family strain — 49.6/100

Sixty-two percent of Richardson mothers with kids under six are in the labor force — six points below the national 68% — and the city's single-parent share, at 24%, sits below the national 32%. The strain score lands in the middle of this batch rather than at the top because the mothers' LFP reading is the softest of the affluent DFW suburbs profiled here. The likely read: at Richardson's housing prices and the household-income mix that dominates the Telecom Corridor neighborhoods, a meaningful share of households still find the math works for one parent to scale back during the under-six years rather than absorb full-time infant care plus a long commute back into the Dallas core.

Policy support — 48.1/100

Texas policy inherits down to Richardson. The state enrolls 52% of four-year-olds in pre-K and spends $4,682 per child. 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. Richardson's national #43 ranking holds despite this dimension. Policy is measured at the state level.

In-home care in Richardson

In-home care in Richardson typically reflects the broader north-DFW nanny market, with full-time live-out rates in the inner-Dallas suburban arc running modestly below the Highland Park / Park Cities premium band and in line with the Plano-Carrollton suburban norm. Nanny shares between two families are an increasingly common solution for the under-three years inside the most-demanded RISD pockets. Au pair hosting is well-established among the international tech families that anchor much of the Telecom Corridor demographic, drawing on DFW-area coordinators from the State Department-designated J-1 sponsor agencies.

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.