Skyrocketing babysitting rates could cost Philly parents hundreds for a night without the kids

When Kristina Boling-Smith and her husband, Eric, plan their monthly nights out together, they don’t budget just for the cost of dinner or the price of a friend’s birthday gift.

They know they’ll also spend $140 to $200 for a babysitter.

To Boling-Smith, it’s money well spent, especially if it means the sitter wants to keep watching their 5-year-old son, Langston, who is autistic.

“Oh, it is priceless,” she said. “Having that time out to hang with friends and just know our child is in good care, it is totally worth budgeting a sitter for once a month.”

Three years ago, when the couple first started using sitters, they paid $18 an hour. Now, they’re paying $35 an hour, plus tip.

Since then, their financial situation has changed: Boling-Smith, 39, returned to her job as a social worker, while her husband continues to work as a literary agent and author.

But Langston’s needs have also increased with age, she said, as has the going rate for babysitters in their Fishtown neighborhood, where she’s heard that parents of neurotypical children usually pay $15 to $20 an hour.

Across the country, other parents also have begun paying more in recent years.

Babysitting rates rose nearly 10% in 2022, outpacing inflation for the second straight year, according to analysis by UrbanSitter, an online platform for finding caregivers. Over two years, rates increased 21%. The average hourly rate nationwide last year was $22.68 for one child and $25.37 for two children, according to site booking data and family surveys of more than 15,000 U.S. households (blog.urbansitter.com/babysitting-rates).

In Philadelphia, the rate for one child increased 17% from 2021 to 2022, while the rate for two children remained steady.

Of the country’s 22 largest metropolitan areas, however, Philly was the fourth-least expensive city last year in which to hire a babysitter, UrbanSitter found, with an average hourly rate of $18.03 for one child and $20.78 for two children.

These rates are below the national average, despite the fact that the city has a higher-than-average cost of living. This disparity intrigued Lynn Perkins, cofounder and CEO of UrbanSitter.

She said she believes several factors are at play, including Pennsylvania’s $7.25 minimum wage, one much lower than the $15 in states such as New York and California that are home to other large cities. (Gov. Josh Shapiro has called on lawmakers to raise the minimum wage to $15.)

Philadelphia’s density of colleges and universities could play a role, she said, as undergraduate students often charge less than older, more experienced sitters. So could the city’s robust public transit system, relative to other cities, which leads fewer sitters to request gas reimbursement.

Only Houston; San Antonio, Texas; and Raleigh, N.C. had lower average hourly rates than Philadelphia.Rates were highest in San Francisco, where people paid, on average, more than $25 an hour for a sitter to watch one child.

One local sitter, who asked not to be identified to speak candidly about clients’ finances, charges a minimum of $20 an hour and has made as much as $5,000 a month on babysitting and nannying alone.

The rising cost of babysitters is a byproduct of a broader child care crisis, one in which both parents and providers are struggling.

Some of the child-care workers who left the profession at the height of the pandemic have not returned to those jobs, which sometimes pay less than $13 an hour, and remain in the babysitting market. That has not only left some care centers understaffed but has also driven up the average hourly rate for babysitters, due to their qualifications, Perkins said.

At the same time, the demand for babysitters, as opposed to more full-time care options, shows no signs of slowing, she said, as many employees have returned to in-person work on a hybrid schedule, where they’re in the office at most a couple days a week.

“Parents are trying to cobble together a babysitter here, a babysitter there. Parents are posting whether they can do a nanny share,” where several families split the cost of a nanny who can watch their children together, said Debra Isaacs Schafer, a work-life consultant in the region with a specialty in working parents with neurodiverse children. “I’ve been doing this work for over 20 years. I’ve never seen it like this.”

Babysitting was once considered an easy way for college students, high schoolers, and even preteens to make extra cash after school and weekends. Some parents still use young babysitters with little experience and few credentials, aside from perhaps the casual recommendation of a friend or coworker. But others want someone more vetted, perhaps with specific certifications or degrees.

“What we’ve found is families tend to look for older child-care providers now,” compared with 12 years ago when UrbanSitter was founded, Perkins said. “It is much harder to find high school babysitters. Kids these days are busier with activities and volunteering.”

The process of securing a babysitter can include interviews and background checks. And it isn’t just sitters who are vying for the job: Parents want to impress, too, with the hopes of securing a caregiver they can rely on for date nights, social gatherings, and work events.

For parents of children with medical conditions or intellectual disabilities, the stakes are even higher, and the pay reflects that. Sites such as UrbanSitter recommend that parents of children with special needs pay higher than the going rate because of the increased demands and expectations of the sitter. Babysitters who watch multiple children or are expected to clean, help with homework, walk the dog, or drive kids to activities should also be paid more, UrbanSitter recommends.

“Parents kind of know to calibrate based on the job they’re being asked to do,” Perkins said. If the sitter will be working at night and the child will be asleep most of the time, for example, a lower rate would be acceptable.

David Levi, 43, of West Chester, said he pays a babysitter $25 an hour several days every other week, when he has custody of his 1-year-old daughter. He had first thought $15 would be acceptable. But he said he changed his mind after learning more about the going rates and seeing how hard it was to find someone reliable. Caring for a toddler also comes with different responsibilities from older, more independent children, and he calls on the sitter often, including if he has to work late unexpectedly.

In Media, Herald Stephens, 37, and his wife have recently interviewed three babysitters, all of whom said they would charge $16 to $20 an hour to watch their 4-year-old twins. The couple plans to split the difference and pay $17.50. But before settling into a regular date night routine, they want their new sitter to accompany them to a pediatrician appointment for their son, who is diabetic.

Stephens anticipates they’ll eventually use a sitter every other week for date nights, a luxury that will be worth it for a few hours without the kids.

“They make you so happy,” Stephens said, “but you really need that break.”