Inflation affecting day care costs as parents worry about future

A mother is outraged after day care prices were raised at a Cape Coral day care.

Brighton Academy, in Cape Coral, now costs $205 a week, up from $165 last year.

Nicole Roberts has another child on the way and said she is scared she will have to switch day care because her daughter’s bill is big.

Day care centers across Cape Coral said prices are increasing because of inflation. A local economist believes the rising costs are a result of the pandemic.

“I mean, I’ll be honest as we struggled to pay it because it’s so expensive,” Roberts said.

Her little one is enrolled at Brighton Academy in Cape Coral. In the last year, the weekly rate has gone up $25.

And now, Roberts said she think the day care will ask for another $15 a week.

“I mean, it’s not OK because it was effective July 1st. And that’s not OK. That was six weeks ago. So now I have to backtrack that,” Roberts said.

The going rate for day care in Cape Coral is about $200 a week.

Victor Claar, an economics professor at FGCU, said that number is going to keep rising.

“It sounds like a strange comparison,” Claar said. “The increases in the cost of childcare aren’t totally different from the increases in things like meals in a restaurant, because customers went away for a really long time. And rather than wait for the customers to come back, people who used to work in those industries went on to other things. ”

That’s what happened during the pandemic.