WASHINGTON — For $235,000, you could indulge in a shiny new Ferrari — or raise a child for 17 years.
A government report released Thursday says a middle-income family with a child born last year will spend about that much in child-related expenses from birth through age 17. That's a 3.5 percent increase from 2010.
The report from the Agriculture Department's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion finds that housing is the single largest expense, averaging about $70,500.
Families living in the urban Northeast tend to have the highest child-rearing expenses.