Lucila Castillo earns about $700 a week as a food service worker in a Boston suburb. After paying $2,200 a month in rent and utilities, she has roughly $600 left for all other expenses for her husband and two daughters. When her 14-year-old daughter asked for new Sambas or soccer cleats this back-to-school season, Castillo said no. "We have to pay the rent," she said.
Castillo isn't alone. Across the country, parents are making harder choices as children's shoe prices climb at their fastest pace in 34 years outside the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022. From January through June 2026, children's footwear prices rose by 7%, even as parents bought 9% fewer pairs, according to the market research firm Circana. The Footwear Distributors and Retailers Association attributes the surge to President Donald Trump's tariff policies and the Iran war, which is driving up petroleum-derived products like shoes.
The squeeze is real, and it's revealing something deeper about who bears the cost when prices rise: families already living paycheck to paycheck.
Who Feels the Pressure Most
In Chelsea, Massachusetts, school superintendent Almi Guajardo Abeyta sees it every day. Worn-out, ill-fitting shoes remain one of the most visible signs of childhood poverty in her community. She's watched students fix their shoes with duct tape. "If you have to make a decision of feeding your family or a pair of shoes, you're going to feed your family," Abeyta said.
Castillo, who moved to the U.S. from Nicaragua with her family more than four years ago, is the primary breadwinner for her household. She's now struggling to afford shoes and other back-to-school items for both her 14-year-old daughter and her 19-year-old daughter, who is starting community college. The math doesn't work. Rent and utilities consume nearly all of her weekly earnings, leaving almost nothing for the essentials her daughters need.
Even middle-class families are feeling the strain. Elizabeth Powers, a 37-year-old San Francisco real estate agent with two children ages 7 and 11, said it's "frustrating" to see shoe prices continue to climb while quality has declined. "Their feet grow so fast as it is," she said. "It's incredibly frustrating to have to replace shoes before they've grown out of them due to poor quality." Powers is sticking to spending a couple hundred dollars for each child for the entire year, including shoes, and is hunting for coupons at DSW and Zappos while buying more versatile styles.
The Growth Problem
Kids' shoes present a particular challenge. Priya Parthasarathy, partner of the U.S. Foot & Ankle Specialists in Silver Spring, Maryland, and national spokesperson for the American Podiatric Medical Association, explained that children ages 7 to 10 outgrow footwear every six to nine months, and teens typically outgrow them every year. That means parents aren't buying luxury items—they're buying necessities that wear out on a predictable schedule.
Yet the data shows parents are responding to higher prices by simply buying less. From January through June, children's footwear sales slipped by 3%, with the number of pairs sold dropping by 9% even as average sale prices rose by 7%. Beth Goldstein, an industry adviser for footwear and accessories at Circana, said children's footwear sales should be stable because kids grow out of shoes faster than adults. "But the data shows parents are buying fewer pairs," she said.
That's not a choice—it's a constraint. When prices rise faster than wages, families cut back. The question is what gets sacrificed and who suffers the consequences.
The Bullying Factor
There's another dimension to this that goes beyond economics. Twelve-year-old Jonah Seidenberg from Northbrook, Illinois, and his mother recently searched multiple sites for Nike Minds sneakers, a futuristic-looking shoe priced at $145. They eventually found a pair at Dick's Sporting Goods for full price. Jonah chipped in $40 of his own money to help cover the cost.
Jonah said the wrong shoes, or ones that are tattered or out of style, can invite bullying. "You can wear any kind of clothing and it would be fine, as long as it's the right size," he said. "It doesn't matter what brand it is. But shoes could be ... high-tops, low-tops. Whatever the person likes better is what will make them feel confident." Casey Lewis, a trend analyst in New York, said kids feel pressure to wear the right sneaker brands more than with other types of clothing. "I think shoes are just so immediately identifiable as like, 'I'm in the crowd,'" she said.
This creates a cruel dynamic: families with fewer resources must choose between affording shoes their children need and affording shoes their children need to avoid social stigma at school.
Retailers Adjust, Families Adapt
Retailers including Target and JCPenney are offering back-to-school deals on shoes. Michelle Wlazlo, JCPenney's brand chief executive officer, acknowledged the pressure on shoppers. "I can't say the gas price is impacting this sale or that thing, but you just feel it," she said, adding that "they're being choiceful." She noted that the sneakerina, a sneaker and ballet slipper combo, is resonating with shoppers looking for footwear that can serve multiple purposes.
Lisa Will, who founded children's outdoor footwear company Stonz Shoes in Vancouver, British Columbia, said customers are gravitating toward neutral-colored shoes that can be passed down to younger siblings. Versatile styles, such as insulated rain boots that can double as snow boots, are also faring well.
Secondhand retailers are seeing a surge in interest. Kristen Brophy, ThredUp's senior vice president and head of marketing, said children's footwear is a small but fast-growing part of the company's business as shoppers look for steep discounts while searching for hot shoe styles that were discontinued. Goodwill and other thrift stores also report more families shopping for gently worn back-to-school shoes.
Jonah and his mother turn to thrift stores for certain clothing brands like Hollister and Polo Ralph Lauren to save money so they can invest more in his shoes. It's a rational strategy for families with limited budgets: sacrifice brand-name clothing to afford the shoes their children need.
Why This Matters:
Rising shoe prices aren't just an inconvenience—they're a window into how inflation distributes itself unequally across society. When prices rise faster than wages, families with the least flexibility bear the heaviest burden. A 7% increase in children's shoe prices might seem modest in the abstract, but for Lucila Castillo, it means choosing between her daughter's shoes and her family's rent. For Almi Guajardo Abeyta's students, it means showing up to school with duct-taped shoes, visible markers of economic hardship. For middle-class families, it means cutting back, buying less, making do with fewer options. The tariff policies driving these increases have consequences that ripple through real households. When children can't afford properly fitting shoes, or when worn-out footwear invites bullying, the cost extends beyond dollars. It affects health, dignity, and belonging. The fact that secondhand retailers and thrift stores are seeing surging demand for children's shoes isn't a sign of savvy shopping—it's evidence that families are running out of options.