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Cost of Rearing a
Child in Rappk.
How much of an investment does the average 18-year -old youngster in Rappahannock County represent? What has it cost his parents to rear him from infancy to age 18? Most parents haven’t the slightest idea. They don’t think of their children in terms of dollars and cents. Beyond knowing that the outlay at certain periods has been large sometimes staggering, they have never thought about the total cost. j According to studies along this line, made by the Insti tute of Life Insurance, the Agriculture Department and "otheraj the cbst varies greatly from family to family but is closely related to income. On the average, about four years of family earnings are spent in raising a child to age 18. The studies show that where net income is in the $5,000 to $7,000 range, as it is with the average Rappahannock County family, the outlay per child is approxinately $22,OOQ Among families in the $12,000 to $14,000 category, the expenditures are in the neighborhood of $51,000 per child, it is found. On the other hand, those with low incomes, operating on a much tighter budget, spend considerably less than this. In most families the largest single item of expense is food. The figures show that a girl consumes about $7,600 worth in the 18 years, based on present price levels, but that a boy outdoes her in that department by at least $500. For the average-income family, other major items of
90.7%