If Moms Got Paid for Their Tasks, They’d Earn $145K a Year, Study Says
Written by
Vance Cariaga
Edited by
Jenna Klaverweiden
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Mother’s Day only comes once a year, but the work that mothers do goes on year-round, every day of the week. If you want to know how much that work would be worth in the labor market, put it this way: Most American households probably can’t afford to pay it.
Over the past year, if moms in the U.S. got paid for the jobs they did, they would have earned a salary of $145,235, according to Insure.com’s Mother’s Day Index for 2025. That represented a 4% gain from the previous year.
To put the salary figure in perspective, consider that the median earnings of the nation’s full-time wage and salary workers are $62,088 a year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Here’s a closer look at some of the numerous jobs moms do and what their equivalent salaries are.
Also see how much middle-class families earn in every state.
All the Jobs Moms Do
To arrive at its salary figure, Insure.com researched the typical pay for all the jobs that mothers do — and there are a lot of them. The list includes household chores, such as cooking meals, cleaning the house and doing the laundry. It also includes support and service roles, like chauffeuring, caregiving, nursing, accounting, counseling and helping with homework.
Insure.com analyzed the average wages for all of these roles and also calculated how many hours a week mothers devote to each. Researchers then put a dollar figure on how much money the typical mom would make from the roles every year.
Here’s a rundown of some of the roles that take up most of a mother’s time.
- Childcare worker (40 hours per week): $33,134 a year
- Community and social service specialist (40 hours): $13,469
- Elementary school teacher (20 hours): $24,156
- Cook (14 hours): $12,478
- Maid/housekeeping (10 hours): $9,043
Those five roles alone add up to annual wages of $92,280 a year. Insure.com also listed 14 other job categories that ranged from judge/magistrate to hairdresser/cosmetologist.
Mom Roles Are Hard To Replace
As part of its research, Insure.com referenced a study published by the Gender Equality Policy Institute showing that in households with both parents working full time, mothers do 1.6 times as much childcare and household work as fathers.
“Stay-at-home moms are often the family’s COO, managing childcare, household logistics, transportation and more,” Melissa Cox, a certified financial planner and owner of Future-Focused Wealth, told Insure.com. “If something happened to her, replacing those roles could cost the family tens of thousands a year.”
Although the vast majority of mothers are part of the paid labor force in some capacity, many millions still work exclusively at home. Nearly one-fifth (18%) of U.S. moms identify themselves as stay-at-home parents, according to Motherly’s 2024 State of Motherhood report.
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Sources
- Insure.com, “Mother’s Day Index 2025: Mom’s annual salary climbs 4%, now more than $145,000.”
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS FIRST QUARTER 2025.”
- Gender Equity Policy Institute, “The Free-Time Gender Gap.”
- Motherly, “State of Motherhood 2024 Survey Report.”
