Being a mom is one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) job. While it is a rewarding pursuit to create good little citizens that will hopefully make the world a better place, it is nearly impossible to take “time off” from being a mom and working overtime is part of the job. Due to the high cost of living in Marin and being very smart women, many moms have another day job with an actual pay check.
Lots of moms struggle with feeling valued for their hard work as a mother. There is no performance review with a cash bonus each year or “President’s Club” for being the best mom ever. So, what is a mom worth?
For the 14th consecutive year, Salary.com surveyed more than 15,000 moms to find out what their top 10 most time-consuming jobs are and how much time per week they spend on each task. They factored in the number of hours worked including overtime and used their extensive salary data to get an estimate of what moms would be paid if they got an annual salary.
At Home Moms estimated salary for 2014 is $118,905 for the U.S. For Marin County, the average annual salary for a SAHM increases to $145,187! Based on a 96.5 hour work week, that gives a Marin SAHM an hourly rate of just under $29.
According to MIT, the living wage for a family of four in Marin County is $25.44 per hour.
Working Moms work 59.4 hours per week and would earn an average annual salary of $70,107 for their mother job in the U.S., and $85,602 in Marin County. Add to this the compensation for their other job (~$91,000 in Marin) and you have average total compensation of $176,602 for a working mom.
I find this inforworking mom picmation helpful since I am a numbers person. I look at the estimated hourly wage and use this to mentally justify outsourcing certain tasks like childcare. When I look at the hourly rate for housekeeping, I believe my time is worth more than $10.19 per hour and maybe I should consider hiring someone to do this task for me.
Living and raising children in is expensive, especially in Marin. Financial stress can increase when you and your partner are not on the same page. If you are feeling under-valued as a mom, you can customize your own salary and print out a paycheck at mom.salary.com. Share this information with your partner, and use this as a reminder of the value of your job as mom.
