October 15, 2026 - Kivo Daily

How Much Money Do Parents Spend on Child Care?

Kivo Daily Staff on October 15, 2026

Raising a child in the United States has always required careful budgeting, but child care costs have climbed sharply in recent years. According to ABC News, parents spend roughly $16,857 per year on child care. Over 18 years, that figure adds up to more than $300,000 for a single child. For many families, the yearly total rivals what they pay for housing or what a student might pay for a year of college tuition.

The financial strain hits hardest in the early years, when infants and toddlers need full-time supervision while their parents work. Families in larger cities and higher-cost regions often pay well above the national average. These costs can be hard to manage in a two-parent household, and they can become even more complicated when parents live apart. Knowing where the money goes can help parents plan ahead in an unpredictable economy.

What Expenses Are Factored Into the Costs of Child Care?

The costs of child care include far more than a monthly daycare bill. When families add up what they spend to raise a child, the list usually includes:

Daycare and preschool
Babysitters, nannies, and after-school programs
School materials
Groceries
Clothing and shoes
Health care
Housing and transportation

Other common expenses include extracurricular activities such as sports leagues, music lessons, and summer camps. While some of these costs are optional, many parents see them as an important part of their child’s growth and social life.

How Do Divorced Parents Handle Child Care Costs?

Divorced and separated parents share the duty to support their children, even when the children live mainly with one parent. In most cases, parents spell out how they will divide child care costs in a parenting plan or divorce settlement. If the parents cannot agree, a judge will decide based on state guidelines and the child’s best interests.

Many states treat work-related child care, such as daycare or after-school programs, as a separate cost that gets added to the basic child support amount. These costs are often split between the parents in proportion to their incomes. For example, if one parent earns 60 percent of the couple’s combined income, that parent may be responsible for 60 percent of daycare costs. Parents may also agree to split specific expenses, such as tuition, summer camp, or extracurricular fees, in a way that fits their family.

Clear communication and good records can prevent many disputes. Some co-parents may use shared calendars or co-parenting apps to track expenses and send reimbursement requests. Keeping receipts and invoices can provide both parents with a full understanding of what has been paid and what is still owed.

What Is Child Support Meant to Cover?

Child support payments cover a child’s basic living needs, such as food, shelter, clothing, and utilities. The goal is to give the child a stable standard of living in both homes, as close as possible to what the child would have had if the parents had stayed together. In general, the parent who receives support does not have to account for every dollar, as long as the money goes toward the household where the child lives.

Some costs may be handled separately from the basic support payment. Courts commonly order one or both parents to provide health insurance for the child and to share uninsured medical expenses. Child care for working parents, private school tuition, and special needs expenses may also be added on top of regular support, depending on the state and the family’s circumstances.

How Is Child Support Calculated in the United States?

Child support guidelines in the United States are set by each state, so the amount a parent pays can vary widely depending on where the family lives. Most states rely on one of three general models.

The income shares model is the most common. Under this approach, the state combines both parents’ incomes and estimates how much the parents would have spent on their children if they lived together. Each parent then pays a share of that amount based on their percentage of the combined income.

The percentage-of-income model bases support on a set percentage of the paying parent’s income. The percentage usually goes up with the number of children. Some states use a flat percentage, while others adjust the percentage as income rises or falls.

The Melson formula is used in only a few states. This model first sets aside enough income for each parent to meet their own basic needs. It then calculates the child’s basic needs and adds a share of any remaining income so the child can benefit from a parent’s higher standard of living.

Under any model, courts usually consider factors such as the number of children, how much time each parent spends with the children, health insurance costs, and support owed for children from other relationships. A judge may also depart from the standard formula when following it would be unfair or would not serve the child’s best interests.

What Can Parents Do to Enforce Unpaid Child Support?

Unpaid child support can leave a parent struggling to cover rent, groceries, and daycare costs, but the law gives parents several ways to collect what is owed. Every state has a child support enforcement agency that can help parents locate the other parent, establish or update an order, and collect payments. These services are often free or available for a small fee.

State agencies have strong collection tools. Common enforcement methods include withholding support directly from the paying parent’s paycheck, intercepting state and federal tax refunds, and placing liens on property such as homes or vehicles. States can also suspend driver’s licenses for failing to pay support.

A parent can ask the court to hold the other parent in contempt for failing to follow a support order. A judge may order fines, require payment plans, or in serious cases, sentence a person to jail time. When the paying parent lives in another state, uniform laws across the country allow child support orders to be enforced across state lines.

Past-due child support generally does not go away on its own, and some states add interest to unpaid amounts. A family law attorney can explain the options available in a particular state and help a parent take the right steps to recover the support a child needs.

Disclaimer: The content in this article is provided for general knowledge. It does not constitute legal advice, and readers should seek advice from qualified legal professionals regarding particular cases or situations.

Five Numbers a Business Owner Should Keep on One Page in 2026

Kivo Daily Staff on October 15, 2026

By Dr. Tamara Patzer

In brief: Five figures sit behind most tax and estate conversations for owners near the top 1%: the income line, the top bracket, the investment income surtax, the capital gains rate, and the estate exclusion. Each is sourced to the IRS or the Tax Foundation, with a note from a New Orleans tax attorney on why how you own matters as much as what you own.

Tax talk gets abstract fast. Five numbers do most of the work for owners who are near, or already inside, the highest-earning tier. Here they are, with sources, followed by the idea that New Orleans tax and estate attorney Todd M. Villarrubia says ties them together.

What Is The First Number: The Income Line?

About $676,000. For tax year 2023, a filer needed roughly that much adjusted gross income to be in the top 1%, according to the Tax Foundation’s analysis of IRS data¹. That group paid about 38.4 percent of federal individual income tax¹. It is a snapshot of one year, and it moves.

Villarrubia opens his book, Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™, with the reminder that the line is lower than many believe.

What Is The Second Number: The Top Bracket?

$640,600 for single filers, $768,700 for joint filers. For 2026, the 37 percent federal bracket applies to taxable income above those amounts, according to the IRS². The IRS page announcing them is marked archival, so confirm current figures before relying on them.

Taxable income is not the same as adjusted gross income, so an owner can sit near the income line and still be below the top bracket, or the reverse. The point is to know both.

What Is The Third Number: The Investment Income Surtax?

3.8 percent. The Net Investment Income Tax applies to certain investment income when modified adjusted gross income is above $200,000 for single filers, $250,000 for joint filers, or $125,000 for married filing separately. Many owners learn about it only when a sale produces a gain on a return that is already large.

What Is The Fourth Number: The Capital Gains Rate?

20 percent. Long-term capital gains are taxed at 0, 15, or 20 percent, and an asset must be held for more than one year to qualify as long-term. For 2025, the 20 percent rate applied above $533,400 of taxable income for single filers and above $600,050 for joint filers. The IRS page gives no 2026 thresholds, so check the current year before planning a sale. The same page notes higher maximum rates of 28 percent for certain items, including collectibles and the taxable part of qualified small business stock.

What Is The Fifth Number: The Estate Exclusion?

$15,000,000. That is the 2026 federal basic exclusion amount per person, as the IRS lists it⁵. An owner whose company, real estate, and investments together pass that amount has a federal estate tax question unless the plan changes the answer.

What Do The Five Numbers Have In Common?

They all depend on how things are held, not only on what is owned. Villarrubia states the idea in two lines. The first is “Wealth preservation depends not on what you own, but on how you own it.” The second is “Structure is not merely an accessory to success; it is essential for its long-term survival.”

In his book, the point comes from the chapter on business structure. Different entities can be taxed differently depending on the elections filed with the IRS, and which one fits depends on the owner’s situation. An owner who knows the five numbers but has never asked how the assets are titled has only half of the picture.

He is just as direct about what goes wrong when nothing is done: “Wealth doesn’t fail because of taxes; it fails because of disorder.” In his telling, the numbers matter less than whether someone has put the pieces in order before they are needed.

Which Of The Five Usually Surprises Owners Most?

It tends to be the third, because it is not a bracket and does not show up on the tax tables most people look at. It is a separate tax with its own thresholds, and it sits on top of everything else. The estate exclusion is a close second. An owner with a $40 million company can feel modestly off because cash is tight, and still hold an estate well above $15,000,000. Both surprises come from the same cause: the balance sheet is mostly one illiquid asset.

A short exercise helps. Take the number you expect to pay on a sale and compare it with the cash you could actually raise without selling anything. If the second figure is far smaller, the owner has a liquidity gap, and closing it is a planning task that takes time.

How Can An Owner Use This List?

Write the five numbers on a single page and put your own next to each one: last year’s adjusted gross income, taxable income, investment income, any gain you expect from a sale, and your estimated estate. The gaps and surprises on that page are the agenda for a meeting with a licensed attorney and a tax professional.

How Should A Reader Keep These Numbers In Perspective?

As context, not as targets. Figures like these describe the country, and they are updated as new data arrives. The useful move is to ask what each one implies for your own household: a threshold you might cross in a sale year, a limit that could shape an estate, a rate that applies to a gain. Write down the one that matters most to you and bring it to your next meeting with your attorney and tax professional.

Common Questions

Do These Numbers Change?

Yes. Thresholds are adjusted regularly, and Congress can change rates and exclusions. Each figure above carries its year.

Are These State Numbers?

No. They are federal. State income tax and state estate rules can differ and are not covered here.

Is Crossing The Income Line A Problem?

No. It is information. It means a larger share of the planning questions applies to you.

Why Does The List Start With Income And End With Estates?

Because that is the order in which most owners meet them. Income comes first, a sale brings the gains and the surtax, and the estate exclusion arrives last, usually after the owner has stopped thinking about it. Planning tends to work better when the order is reversed and the end is considered first.

Sources

About the author. Dr. Tamara Patzer is a publisher and former newspaper editor. She was on the staff of The Charlotte Sun when it was named a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for its Hurricane Charley coverage.

About the source. Todd M. Villarrubia is an attorney with an LL.M. in Taxation and a Juris Doctorate. He is an Accredited Estate Planner, a Board Certified Expert in Estate Planning and Administration, and a Fiduciary Investment Advisor Representative. He is the author of Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™. Wealth Planning Law Group, 101 W. Robert E. Lee Blvd., Ste 404, New Orleans, LA 70124. Phone: 504-982-8207; email: todd@lawealthplan.com; Website: Wealth Planning Law Group

Disclaimer: Attorney advertising. Sponsored feature written on behalf of Todd M. Villarrubia. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Results vary.

Pluto Security Raises $42 Million to Secure Enterprise AI

Kivo Daily Staff 2 on October 15, 2026

Pluto Security has raised $42 million to develop software that helps businesses identify and manage security risks associated with artificial intelligence tools, applications and agents. Led by co-founder and CEO Shahar Bahat, the startup is expanding its enterprise AI security platform as organizations seek greater oversight of employee AI use.

Key Takeaways

Pluto Security secured $8.5 million in seed funding led by TLV Partners and $34 million in Series A financing led by Jump Capital
The startup develops software to monitor AI applications, tools and agents across enterprise environments
Its platform focuses on security risks associated with employee-built AI applications and connected software
Pluto Security reported more than $2 million in annual recurring revenue and over 30 enterprise customers
The company plans to expand product development, security research and U.S. operations

Pluto Security Funding Reaches $42 Million Across Two Rounds

Pluto Security secured $8.5 million in seed financing led by TLV Partners, followed by a $34 million Series A round led by Jump Capital. The investment will support development of its enterprise AI security platform and expansion into the U.S. market.

The company emerged from stealth on October 13, 2026, introducing technology designed to help organizations monitor security risks associated with employee adoption of AI applications. Its platform focuses on AI tools, agents and connected software components that may operate outside established IT oversight processes.

Shahar Bahat, Pluto Security’s co-founder and chief executive, leads the startup as it expands its work with enterprise customers. The company’s technology addresses the speed at which employees can adopt AI tools or build applications, sometimes before security teams have assessed their configurations, permissions and potential vulnerabilities.

Investors Back Enterprise AI Security Development

TLV Partners and Jump Capital were joined by other investors, including the founders of cybersecurity company Armis, Skinos, Ansa Capital and angel investors.

Their participation reflects broader interest in AI cybersecurity platform development, particularly technologies addressing security challenges associated with artificial intelligence and automation.

Pluto Security focuses on risks that arise when employees use third-party AI services, connect applications to company systems or create their own tools. These activities can complicate security oversight when businesses lack visibility into which applications are operating, what information they can access and how they are configured.

Its software is designed to help security teams identify AI-related activity, assess potential vulnerabilities and manage risks across enterprise environments. The platform also monitors AI extensions, connectors and agents that employees introduce into their workflows.

Pluto Security Targets Risks From Employee-Built AI Applications

Employee-built applications are a central focus of Pluto Security’s platform. Staff members can use generative AI tools to create software for internal tasks without following the development, testing and security review processes typically used by engineering teams.

These applications may handle company information, connect to internal systems or operate with permissions that have not been reviewed by security personnel. Such risks highlight the importance of enterprise AI access controls for managing how applications interact with sensitive information and which resources they can reach.

Bahat reported that approximately 60% of the risks identified across Pluto Security’s customer base involved tools built with AI by employees outside traditional software development roles. Finance departments accounted for the largest share, followed by marketing and legal teams.

Bahat also described an application created by a finance employee at a Fortune 500 company to manage customer information and churn. According to Bahat, the application had been left exposed to the internet, illustrating how employee-developed tools can introduce security vulnerabilities when configurations are not adequately reviewed.

These challenges extend beyond applications created by professional developers. Employees across departments may build internal tools to simplify workflows without having the technical expertise to evaluate every security implication.

Pluto Security’s software helps organizations identify these applications, assess their associated risks and provide security teams with visibility into AI activity that may otherwise remain outside established oversight processes.

Enterprise Customers Drive the Startup’s Commercial Expansion

Pluto Security began selling its software in April 2026 and reported exceeding $2 million in annual recurring revenue. The company also disclosed more than 30 enterprise customers, including Oscar Health, Workato, Sixt and AlphaSense.

Annual recurring revenue reflects the annualized value of recurring customer contracts rather than revenue recognized during a completed financial year.

The company’s reported customer base spans several industries, reflecting demand for software that helps enterprises understand how employees use AI applications and connected tools. Its platform is intended for organizations managing both internally developed applications and third-party AI services.

Enterprise adoption involves evaluating how security software integrates with existing systems and whether it provides useful information for identifying and managing risks. Pluto Security’s technology can connect with endpoint security and device management systems to collect relevant information about AI activity.

The company also provides capabilities intended to identify risky software components and potentially unsafe actions performed by AI agents. These functions support security teams in addressing vulnerabilities while maintaining oversight of employee AI use.

Pluto Security’s reported revenue and customer figures establish an early commercial base. Continued adoption will depend on how effectively its platform meets enterprise security requirements and integrates into existing technology environments.

Product Development and U.S. Expansion Shape the Growth Strategy

Pluto Security’s next stage of development centers on strengthening its AI security platform, advancing security research and expanding its presence in the United States.

Product development will focus on identifying and managing risks associated with AI applications, tools and autonomous agents. As employees adopt new technologies, security teams need ways to assess how those systems interact with company information and existing infrastructure.

Security research will support the company’s examination of vulnerabilities affecting AI-related software and connected components. This work contributes to its broader objective of helping organizations identify risks that emerge as AI tools become more integrated into business operations.

Expanding its U.S. operations will allow Pluto Security to develop its commercial presence and support additional enterprise deployments. The company’s existing customer relationships provide a foundation for those efforts.

Pluto Security’s growth strategy combines continued technical development with enterprise market expansion. Its progress will depend on its ability to address evolving AI security requirements and support organizations managing increasingly complex technology environments.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Funding Has Pluto Security Raised?

Pluto Security raised $42 million through an $8.5 million seed round led by TLV Partners and a $34 million Series A led by Jump Capital.

Who Founded Pluto Security?

Shahar Bahat is a co-founder and CEO of Pluto Security. Bahat leads the company’s development of enterprise security software focused on AI applications, tools and agents.

What Does Pluto Security’s AI Security Platform Do?

The platform helps enterprises identify and manage risks associated with AI tools, applications, agents and connected software components. It also provides visibility into applications employees develop outside traditional software development processes.

Which Enterprises Use Pluto Security?

Pluto Security reported more than 30 enterprise customers, including Oscar Health, Workato, Sixt and AlphaSense.

How Does Pluto Security Help Businesses Manage AI Security Risks?

Pluto Security provides software that helps organizations monitor AI-related activity, identify risky applications and assess potential vulnerabilities. Its platform supports security teams in maintaining oversight of employee AI use across enterprise environments.

Day: October 15, 2026

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