COVID Pandemic Worsens Pay Gap With Working Moms Getting 58 Cents for Every Dollar Dads Earn

motherhood penalty National Women's Law Center pay gap gender pay gap

By Joel Brussels , Parent Herald Sep 09, 08:11 am

Photo: (Photo : Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) reported that moms working full-time, on average, earn just 74 cents for every dollar paid to a dad in the United States. The pay gap is even worse for many moms of color in the country.

Black, Native American, and Latina Moms earned 52, 49, and 47 cents, respectively, for every dollar paid to white fathers. White, non-Hispanic mothers, on the other hand, were paid 71 cents, while moms who are Asian American earned 90 cents for every dollar.

Fatherhood boosted men's earnings, as dads working full-time made $65,000 back in 2020, compared to just $56,000 for men overall. Women, however, see a much smaller increase in their earnings as parents. According to NWLC, moms working full-time made about $48,000 back in 2020 compared to $45,000 for women overall.

COVID pandemic worsens pay gap

However, these figures don't show the devastating impact of the COVID pandemic on moms' advancement in the workforce, as many women lost their jobs due to the public health crisis or were forced into part-time roles as schools went remote and childcare options diminished.

The disappearance of so many low-paid, part-time jobs caused the median earnings for all women working full-time to increase in 2020, the latest year for which data has been made available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the NWLC, when comparing all mothers and fathers who worked back in 2020, regardless of how many hours the parents worked, the average mom earned just 58 cents for every dollar a white, non-Hispanic dad made.

The differential adds up to a total of $17,000 in lost wages for moms working full-time each year over time. That is a significant amount as it could cover 12 months' worth of groceries and child care for an American family.

Working moms have to deal with the motherhood penalty

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the executive director and CEO of the social welfare organization MomsRising, told CNBC Make It that being a mother remains an even greater predictor of wage discrimination in the country than being a woman. She added that it is outrageous.

She pointed out that working moms often face the motherhood penalty, a well-documented phenomenon that results in moms getting paid less. They also see fewer promotional opportunities because of conflicting cultural norms and sexist attitudes.

Research from Cornell University and Harvard College has shown that moms are overwhelmingly granted lower starting salaries than childless women and dads. The opposite is true, however, for dads, who are offered a significantly higher starting salary than childless men.

Jasmine Tucker, the NWLC's research director, said that the COVID pandemic had compounded such factors driving the motherhood wage gap. She warned that the labor force participation rate for mothers with kids under 18 has still not recovered from the pandemic.