Sonoma County named 10th most expensive place to raise a child in the US, study says

The Santa Rosa-Petaluma metro area is among the most expensive place to raise a child in the United States, according to financial website SmartAsset.

Raising a child in Sonoma County costs nearly $10,000 more than the annual national average, a new study said.

The metro area was ranked tenth in SmartAsset’s list of “Most Expensive Places to Raise a Child,” coming in right behind neighboring Napa.

According to the website, the average annual cost of raising a child in Santa Rosa and Petaluma is $29,544. That figure breaks down to $12,733 per year for child care, $2,111 per year for food and $7,980 per year for housing.

The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area topped SmartAsset’s list with an annual average cost of $35,647 to raise a child. Santa Cruz ($33,877) was number 2, followed by San Jose ($33,228), Barnstable Town, located on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts ($33,184), and Boston, Massachusetts ($32,307).

The SmartAsset study calculated the cost of raising one child in 381 metro areas across the U.S., considering the extra costs of food, housing, child care, health care, transportation and other necessities when a two-adult household adds a child.

Across the country, the average cost of raising a child is $20,813 per year, with child care accounting for nearly half of that cost. While the Bay Area and Massachusetts’ metro areas came in at the top of the list of expensive places to raise a child, South Carolina is the most affordable state to raise a child, with 5 of its 10 metro areas listed at the bottom of the list.

The least expensive place to raise a child is Morristown, Tennessee, at $14,577 per year.

Other California metro areas listed among the top 20 most expensive places to raise a child include Napa ($30,412), Ventura ($29,371), Los Angeles and Anaheim ($29,131), San Diego ($28,745), Santa Barbara ($28,442) and San Luis Obispo ($27,287).

For more information, go to smartasset.com.