As a national average, women ages 25 to 34 earn 89 cents for every dollar a man in the same age group earns. This is a big improvement from the overall 80 cents for women of all ages. So it is getting better with time. In New York, it’s 88 cents overall. We can easily attribute this to The New York State Fair Pay Act and the prohibition on requiring disclosure of salary history which punishes women for a lifetime based on discrimination early in their career because we know in 2005 it was closer the national average. New York now ranks 3rd nationally in pay gap per the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
Yet Wallethub.com recently ranked New York #20 for working moms. This is based on a combination of childcare availability and affordability, professional opportunities, and work-life balance factors such as having a paid parental leave law in place (New York got an “A” here from the National Partnership for Women & Families). New York was listed as #1 for the best daycare systems. This was based on school/daycare quality scores, caregivers to kids ratio, and affordability as based on the median female wage.
If the wage gap, childcare, and work-life balance are that good, why the low (#20) ranking Wallethub?
New York is one of 23 states with pregnancy accommodation laws, one of the few states with breast milk expression rights, and one of only 6 states with paid parental leave laws in place. Seems pretty good to me.
We know that women in married couples, especially with small children, are less likely to participate in the workforce, but with New York’s unemployment rate at a low 4%–they can if they want and the state is doing more to support them than most states.
Hold My Coffee, Daycare Affordability, Really?
Now, the one factor they did not account for in any of these measures: daycare affordability in New York City. We know it is not aligned with the rest of the state if it is listed as affordable. It’s most definitely not. That’s the next problem for NYC to tackle. It is why so many moms are becoming self-employed to better juggle things, but that has it’s own issues.