Women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and 74% of moms with children under 18 years old were working in 2023. Working moms still face an uphill battle in the workplace, though, as women’s average hourly wage is only 82% of what men make, and only 10.4% of S&P 500 companies’ chief executives are women.
Some states are doing more to address these fundamental problems than others, though. 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 far from uniform as well.
In order to help ease the burden on an underappreciated segment of the population, WalletHub compared state dynamics across 17 key metrics to identify the Best & Worst States for Working Moms.
