By Dianne L. Stallings
Ruidoso News, N.M.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) The key metrics in the rankings include the state’s median salary for women, the female unemployment rate and the state’s quality of day-care.
Ruidoso News, N.M.
New Mexico ranks 35th in a report on the best and worst states for working mothers in 2019, released by the personal finance website WalletHub as Mother’s Day approaches.
With more than 70 percent of mothers with young children working today, WalletHub compared the attractiveness of each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for a working mother based on 16 key metrics.
The data set ranges from median women’s salary to female unemployment rate to day-care quality, according to the report.
Women make up nearly half of the United States workforce, but they earned only 85 percent of what men made in 2018, according to the report.
“They have far less upward mobility, as evidenced by the fact that only 4.8 percent of Standard and Poor’s 500 companies’ chief executives are female,” the report stated.
“Such obvious inequality sparks debates about gender roles in a shifting socioeconomic environment. Workplace inequality brings up not just financial questions but also deeply ingrained social issues. For instance, should women have to choose between career and family?”
Although some progress appears to be occurring, the pace varies from state to state, the report stated.
“Not only do parental leave policies and other legal support systems vary by state, but the quality of infrastructure, from cost-effective day care to public schools, is also far from uniform as well.”
Best States for Working Moms
1. Massachusetts
2. Rhode Island
3. Connecticut
4. Vermont
5. District of Columbia
6. New Jersey
7. Minnesota
8. Wisconsin
9. New Hampshire
10. Washington
Worst States for Working Moms
1. Louisiana
2. Alabama
3. South Carolina
4. Idaho
5. Mississippi
6. Nevada
7. Georgia
8. West Virginia
9. Texas
10. Arizona
To view the full report, visit https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-for-working-moms/3565/.
Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Child Care Aware® of America, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Council for Community and Economic Research, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, National Partnership for Women & Families and WalletHub research.
