Intro: The One-Income Question

Somewhere tonight, two adults are standing in the kitchen doing the kind of math nobody posts on Instagram. Not “Where should we vacation?” math. The real stuff: mortgage, groceries, car insurance, the school calendar, the random fees that show up like they live in your house.

And then the question lands—quiet, heavy, and extremely modern: How much would one of us need to earn so the other can stay home and raise the kids?
Not because you’re trying to cosplay the 1950s. Because child care is expensive. Because two full-time schedules are breaking families at the seams. Because stability is starting to feel like something you have to “qualify” for.

This is not a guilt trip. It’s a clear-eyed look at the one-income family in 2026 America, with real public benchmarks and a worksheet you can use tonight.

Why It’s Harder Now

The squeeze isn’t your imagination. The biggest chunks of household spending are the things you can’t cancel. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2024 the average household spent about 33.4% of annual expenditures on housing and 17.0% on transportation. Food was 12.9% and healthcare was 7.9%. (That’s not “fun money.” That’s life money.) BLS Consumer Expenditures—2024

When housing and transportation take up that much oxygen, the one-income dream doesn’t just get harder. It gets repriced into a different social class. You can be responsible, employed, and still feel like you’re one surprise away from the kind of stress that changes your personality.

What “One Income” Really Means

Most people say “one income” and mean “one salary.” But the salary is only the loudest part of the system. One income also means one set of benefits, one retirement match, one employer, one schedule, and one point of failure.

Health insurance is the biggest trap because it hides in plain sight. KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey reported average annual premiums for employer-sponsored family coverage at $26,993, with workers contributing an average of $6,850. That’s not a small line item. That’s a bill disguised as a perk.

So when you ask, “How much do we need?” the right question is: how much do we need to keep the whole system upright when one paycheck disappears?

The Baseline Number (MIT Living Wage Calculator)

If you want a starting point that isn’t vibes, the MIT Living Wage Calculator is one of the cleanest public tools available. It estimates the local cost of basic needs, then adds payroll and income taxes using a consistent methodology. MIT notes its data was last updated on February 10, 2025.

For this article, the relevant family type is the one that matches the stay-at-home-parent setup: 2 adults, 2 children, 1 working adult. MIT publishes “required annual income after taxes” and “annual taxes” for each county. When we add those together, we get a practical “before-tax requirement” for what the one working parent needs to earn.

County Reality Check

Below are examples from MIT’s county pages for a household with 2 adults, 2 children, and 1 working adult. These are baseline estimates, not “comfortable living” numbers. They’re meant to cover basic needs plus taxes in that location.

Here’s what makes those numbers sting: the U.S. Census Bureau reports median household income was $83,730 in 2024. That’s the middle household, not the struggling edge.

That’s the receipt. In many places, a one-income family of four requires the working parent to earn at or above what the “middle” household makes nationally. If that makes your plan feel hard, it’s because it is.

Child Care: Villain & Plot Twist

Child care is the reason so many families start dreaming about one parent staying home. Child Care Aware reports the national average price of child care in 2024 was $13,128.

But the plot twist is brutal: child care is expensive enough to push families toward a stay-at-home setup, while the overall cost of living is high enough to block the stay-at-home setup. You end up working to pay for the privilege of working.

Care.com’s 2024 Cost of Care Report puts a human number on what parents feel: survey respondents said they spend 24% of household income on child care, while HHS considers child care “affordable” when it costs no more than 7% of household income.

The Second-Income Mirage

This is where the kitchen math turns into an argument. One parent sees the second paycheck and says, “We need it.” The other parent looks at child care, commuting, taxes, and convenience spending and says, “Do we?”

Sometimes the second income is absolutely worth it. Sometimes it’s real money. But sometimes it’s a stress subscription with a small refund.

This is not saying “quit your job.” It’s saying stop treating gross pay like the number that matters. The number that matters is what the household keeps after the costs of earning that money show up.

Risk & Emergency Runway

A one-income plan isn’t just about paying bills. It’s about surviving shocks. When there’s only one paycheck, you don’t get the cushion of “the other job” during a layoff, a health event, or a slow hiring cycle.

This isn’t fearmongering. It’s a respect for reality. A one-income family can be beautiful and stable, but it needs more runway because it has fewer backups.

3 Ways Families Make It Work

Most families who pull this off don’t do it with one heroic salary and a motivational quote. They do it with structure. They pick a setup that matches their stress points and their risk tolerance.

If none of these feels great, that’s not you failing. That’s you noticing the truth: American families are being asked to buy stability at premium prices.

Protect the Stay-at-Home Parent

Here’s my skeptical note, delivered with respect: love is not a benefits package. If one parent stays home, the household has to treat that role like real labor that deserves real protection.

That means keeping retirement contributions alive in some form, keeping credit active, and building a re-entry plan so the at-home parent doesn’t become financially invisible. It also means talking honestly about power. Money changes relationships if you pretend it won’t.

And remember, this is not just a “mom” topic anymore. Pew Research Center found that in 2021, 18% of parents didn’t work for pay, and the share of stay-at-home parents who are dads has grown.