Babysitters Are Charging $35 an Hour, and Parents Are Paying It
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Here's your money briefing for Friday, May 27th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. In one of the tightest labor markets in years, workers are commanding top dollar as employers face a hard time finding good help. We talk about it all the time in the business world, but it's also true in the business of babysitting, where parents are struggling to find someone to watch the kids, and rates have gone as high as $35 an hour.
So parents are really in an arms race to try to secure the best babysitters. You know, you used to maybe tell your friends who the good babysitters in town were, and now people are hoarding those numbers of teens.
Coming up, we'll talk with our reporter Rachel Wolf about what's behind this trend. Plus, we'll hear firsthand from one 15-year-old babysitter about how she's been able to command higher pay. That's after the break.
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The babysitting business is booming. Like lots of other people in the current tight labor market, babysitters are in high demand. And parents are willing to shell out top dollar to teens who can come over and watch the kids. And that's pushing rates as high as $35 an hour or more.
How is the tight labor market driving babysitting rates up to $35 an hour?
In a moment, Wall Street Journal reporter Rachel Wolf will join us to talk about what's going on here. But first, let's hear directly from one babysitter who's been able to cash in on the current market. 15-year-old Evelyn Laperfido lives in Colorado, and she's with us now. Evelyn, thank you so much for being with us.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
So, Evelyn, how long have you been babysitting?
Since I was like 11 or 12, so like three-ish years.
Okay, it goes back a couple of years before the pandemic. How much money did you charge per hour before the pandemic?
I would charge between like $10 and $15, depending on how many kids, but most regularly it would be one kid for $10.
So tell us about how that money has gotten up to around $35 an hour.
So once I started working in like, I work in retail besides babysitting. So I wanted to charge more than I was getting paid when I was working at the store that I work at because it's more work than working there. So really then and then also some of my other friends who babysit a little bit, they're like, oh, yeah, I charge. like at least $20 an hour. I get normally above $20 an hour, but upwards of like $35, $40 an hour. And a lot of the people that I babysit for are tourists. So they're coming in from out of town with their families. So there's like three to four kids normally. So that's most regular. I also babysit my cousins a lot because they live just around the corner and they're like, they're three and seven.
So that's probably my most regular clients.
How does that conversation go with the parents when you're telling them how much you charge? They probably made less than you when they were babysitting.
So most of the time they're texting me, and so we figure it out before.
Why are parents competing to secure teenage babysitters in 2022?
So they're like, just the other week I was texted by someone who I don't know.
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