At $65,523, Mom’s “salary” isn’t close to keeping up with the cost of living. What gives?
Consider the Job of Being A Mom: After the cards, gifts and well wishes last week for mothers everywhere, Insure.com now presents a sobering view of how we value the ‘job’ they do and the ‘income’ they get paid for doing it. But what are the implications for insuring these values, for life insurance or disability?
(Foster City, Calif.) May 17, 2016 – Each year for Mother’s Day,Insure.com calculates the value for all of mom’s jobs for our Mother’s Day Index. This year, they’ve discovered that mom’s “salary” increased just a half percent to $65,523, which is a pretty crummy raise.
“Mom’s salary didn’t keep pace with the 2.4 percent increase in inflation this year,” said Penny Gusner, consumer analyst for Insure.com. “Out of the 14 jobs that we’ve assigned to moms, eight of them fell in average wage, and only three jobs kept pace with inflation. Mom’s biggest salary bump this year comes from her job as a driver.”
The many jobs of mom
The largest portions of mom’s paycheck, earning 60 percent of her annual salary, come from these three jobs alone:
- Childcare worker: 2080 hours per year = $22,360
- Social director: 480 hours per year = $8,736
- Teacher: 400 hours per year = $8,170
But not all of those jobs helped with a raise this year. These are the roles that kept pace or better with inflation – contributing 25 percent of mom’s salary:
- Driver: up 20.7 percent compared to last year
- Teacher: up 5.9 percent compared to last year
- Personal assistant: up 3.8 percent compared to last year
The jobs where mom spends most of her time, however, either didn’t keep up with inflation or decreased in value:
- Childcare worker: -3.2 percent
- Cook: -1.3 percent
- Housekeeper: + 1.8 percent
View the full task chart and associated wages.
Mom really does like homemade gifts
With Mother’s Day quickly approaching, Insure.com surveyed 500 moms to discover their gift preferences, revealing that while they’d love to go a shopping spree, a homemade gift is often their favorite.
A few of the most common Mother’s Day gifts were given a thumbs-down from Moms this year:
- Nearly 25 percent of moms want you to leave the picking of perfumes to them.
- 14 percent, in fact, even said they don’t want flowers.
- 24 percent of moms said no to household appliances, like vacuums and blenders – leading us to think that where you see a gift, moms see a chore.
What matters most
With a fun look at moms and all that they do for our families, Insure.com aims to gently remind families just how important it is to have a life insurance policy in place and how much it would cost to replace the monetary value of a mom. Without an adequate life insurance policy in place, a family could be financially devastated if Mom is no longer around and others must be brought in to take over her household tasks.
“According to our survey, about 34 percent of people purchased their policy when they became parents,” said Gusner. “Having a life insurance policy to protect your family in the event of a loss can provide great peace of mind, and it’s often less expensive than people realize. It’s a critical part of financial planning for the future for your family.”
You can read the full Mother’s Day Index 2016 feature on Insure.com.
Methodology
“Mom’s value” is based on occupational wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and does not include a salary from work outside the home. It is calculated using a list of common household tasks that mothers often perform. For the data on moms’ presidential opinions and Mother’s Day gifts, Insure.com commissioned a survey of 1,000 men and woman age 25 or older who have children ages 6-20. The survey, conducted by Op4g, was fielded in March 2016.
About Insure.com
Insure.com provides a comprehensive array of information on auto insurance, home insurance, health insurance and life insurance. The site offers an extensive library of originally authored insurance articles and decision-making tools that are not available from any other single source, including its extensive car insurance discounts tool. Insure.com is owned and operated by QuinStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: QNST), one of the largest Internet marketing and media companies in the world.
