We could make every day Mother’s Day by addressing the high cost of child care

May 9, 2016 by Kristina Li in Blog, Economic Opportunity

On Mother’s Day we recognized and honored the women in our lives who have always supported us. With another celebration behind us, it’s time to get something done that would address the many challenges that severely hinder the ability of many to support themselves and achieve economic security for their families 365 days a year.

The American family has drastically changed in the last few decades. Today in the United States, women earn the primary or only income for nearly 40 percent of all families. Married women are the primary or co-breadwinner for more than half of all families. A woman’s wage is essential to her family’s ability to put food on the table, make rent, and pay the bills.

Right now a woman working in Maryland makes only 80 cents for every dollar made by men in comparable jobs. This wage disparity is even greater for women of color: African American woman make 70 cents, and Latina women 47 cents for every dollar paid to a man doing comparable work.

Full-time working Maryland women collectively lose more than $8.5 billion a year due to the wage gap. Broken down, this could help each individual mother buy 70 weeks of groceries for her family, pay five more months of mortgage and utility payments, or buy over 3,800 gallons of gas. When women receive unfair wages, the economy loses out on huge potential activity. In Maryland, more than 318,000 families are headed by women and almost 20 percent of those female-headed households have income that falls below the federal poverty line: $16,020 for a family of two.

Closing the wage gap would significantly help mothers provide for their families. Maryland has taken some positive steps, like this year’s wage transparency legislation. The passed Equal Pay for Equal Work Act of 2016 will build on past legislation to protect workers from employer retaliation if they share salary information with their colleagues. This will make it easier for female employees to learn about wage differences in their workplace. Now it’s time for more — like reducing child care costs and giving everyone the right to paid time off when they or a family member are sick.

Some mothers are forced into difficult decisions about their work options due to the high cost of child care. Some low-wage-earning mothers have to cut back on hours so they can stay home with their children because the cost of child care is greater than what they would earn. Working single mothers often have only a few hundred dollars to cover basic essentials like food and utilities after rent and child care fees. When the cost of child care is just too much to handle, some mothers decide to quit their jobs entirely. While this option may be viable for some married couples with higher incomes, it puts single mothers and their children at serious risk for falling under the poverty line.

The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends that a family spend around 10 percent of its total income on child care. According to the Maryland Family Network, due to high average childcare costs, a typically Maryland family spends closer to 27 percent of their income on child care. Forcing mothers to choose between making sure that their children are well cared for and earning income to provide for their families is not sustainable. Closing the wage gap will give these struggling mothers stability to balance child care and work so that they can build better futures for their children.

If Maryland invested in more public child care and early childhood education, it could simultaneously lift the burden off of poor working mothers and benefit Maryland’s economy. By allowing more people the opportunity to work while their children are cared for, parents will have more money to spend on goods and services. Working on steps to reduce a family’s child care costs to the recommended 10 percent will save families thousands of dollars every year.

Maryland mothers continue to face wage inequity and child care challenges. Making sure that Maryland is taking steps to close the wage gap and provide more reliable and safe child care and early childhood education options can strengthen the base for future economic growth.