INFLATION IS HURTING THE TOOTH FAIRY TOO

The Tooth Fairy has pretty good job security, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t the risk of pay cuts.  For the first time in five years, the value of a single lost tooth has declined.

Delta Dental’s 26th annual Tooth Fairy Poll just came out.  And they found the national average is now $5.84 per tooth.  That’s down 39 cents from $6.23 last year, which was an all-time high.  Current prices are still UP nearly two dollars from four years ago, pre-pandemic.

Kids in the West get the biggest payouts at $8.54 per tooth.  (Talk about a gold rush!)  Kids in the Northeast are next at $6.87, then the South at $5.51, and the Midwest is lower at “just” $3.63 a tooth.

But even with this one-year decline, the overall trend is strong.

Over the past 26 years, the average Tooth Fairy payout has surged 349% from $1.30 to $5.84 per tooth.  At that rate, by 2050, the Tooth Fairy will be leaving a whopping $30 under the pillow for a single tooth.