A couple of months ago, I asked my readers what they thought were the key issues around politics and parenthood. It was very interesting how wide ranging their policy proposals were. Their proposals hit on limiting work hours, increasing the time in school, having more walkable cities, and having a more equitable school system. And all this makes sense. Parents, and in particular women, are burdened with long commutes, mediocre after-school programs, the pressure to buy an expensive home in a town with a good school system, and 6:00 meetings.
Today, I’m going to point to various policy proposals that could improve the lives of mothers.
I focused on the problems that moms in the workforce face yesterday, but many moms work at home taking care of their children. Raising kids is work. The problem is that they receive no compensation or social security credits for their work. One proposal calls for mothers to get social security credits for parenting.
Mother Ought To Have Equal Rights or MOTHERS is a DC group that advocates for the rights of mothers. I’ve subscribed to their newsletter for many years. They explain the social security credit proposal.
They point out that motherhood is the number one predictor of poverty in old age. One-third of women over 64 live in or near poverty. Nearly 53% of women depend on Social Security to protect them from poverty. While some estimate that the value of caregiving in the US at 1 trillion dollars, that caregiving earns you a big fat zero on you Personal Benefit Statement.
They propose that women who are full-time caretakers of children under six or a sick family member should receive a Social Security credit equivalent to a $16,000 per year job. I think this number is incredibly low. Some estimate that a stay at home mom (SAHM) provides services that would cost over $100,000 if done by others. Regardless of how one calculates the worth of at-home caretaking, it has to be larger than zero.
This Social Security benefit would primarily benefit low-income women. It might only boost their yearly benefits by $418, but I think that this would be an important first step towards recognizing the value of parenthood.
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The estimate that a SAHM does $100,000 worth of work is way off; Salary.com does this every year, and they do it by adding in a CEO’s salary and a psychiatrist’s salary.
A SAHM is not the CEO of a large enterprise. A SAHM may be the CEO of a very tiny non-profit. Very tiny non-profits have CEOs that make very tiny salaries in comparison to CEOs of large enterprises. And a SAHM is not a psychiatrist since by definition a psychiatrist is someone who *doesn’t* know you personally; if you are a psychiatrist it is considered a bad idea to treat family members. The SAHM’s role is more equivalent to that of school counselor or some other social work role… which makes very little money.
Also, when you add up the jobs that the typical working father does around the house, he adds almost as much value as the typical working mother, in financial terms. This is largely due to a distortion in the figures caused by the fact that anything that women do is financially devalued; when I ran the figures for myself, my role as chauffeur/taxi driver was just as well paid as my role as teacher’s aide, even though one needs considerably more education to be a good teacher’s aide. Jobs that men do, primarily, are considered worth more than jobs that women do, primarily, so a man can do “man’s work” around the house, do less of it, and still end up being replaceable at the same or higher price as the working mom who does “woman’s work” around the house when her workday is done. (Of course a SAHM usually does much *more* “woman’s work” than a working mom does.)
The average SAHM is actually replaceable (meaning that if she died or was disabled and could not do her job, the cost it would be to her family to hire someone to do all her work) at around $38K, more if she does a lot of driving. The average working mom is replaceable at around $20K (plus, of course, the salary she brings in.) The average working dad is also replaceable at around $20-25K. I suspect there’s much more consistency in “women’s work” than “men’s work”, though; my husband, for instance, does electrical and plumbing repairs, puts up drywall, demolishes concrete floors that are crumbling, and other such things that go above and beyond the level of “handy”, whereas my dad will maybe put together a piece of pre-fab furniture now and then, or might be bothered to install software on your computer, but other than that does no work around the house. My dad actually does all the shopping, which would be “woman’s work” by most people’s lights. However, my mom, a SAHM, and I do pretty much the exact same work, except that my mom did more of it than I do as I have a job.
If we rejiggered the figures to represent years of education and training, rather than how much the jobs actually command in the workforce, then the mother roles of teaching and counseling probably come in at higher salaries than the father roles of fixing occasional stuff that breaks. But even with that I doubt any SAHM can get above a replacement rate of $60K. Maybe if she saves her family tons of money through lots of handmade goods, managing a garden and doing canning, that kind of thing, but that goes way beyond the average SAHM.
Still, it’s higher than $16K and it’s certainly vastly higher than 0.
I love the idea of a social security credit, although in our home it’s for the SAHD. I’ve been worrying about SS for him for years now.
Why couldn’t we just base the amount on whatever the average pay for a live in nanny is? I have never undertood why they are considered employed and hard working, but stay at home parents are often not. Why couldnt we just give parents the option to “hire” themselves for childcare, and pay into the social security system just like they would do for a hired caregiver.
Definitely agree that there should be a larger tax credit. But agree with Alara Rogers that it shouldn’t be based on a $100,000 salary. A SAHM DOES have a hard job. I’ve been one. The hardest part, IMHO, is the brain-drain of having to maintain a 1-2 yr old’s mindset and…not getting breaks when you want them. There are perks, too, however that you don’t need to deal with in the work world. Less pressure (no time pressures of having to be at work by xx time, having to attend meetings at xx time, having to deliver projects by xx date) and occasionally, you may even be able to sneak in a nap here or there or sit and read during downtimes. Additionally, there are no qualifications for being a SAHM and different SAHM’s may choose to use the time at home in different ways. Some institute a rigor every day to maximize their children’s learning. Others may not see this as important and therefore, allow their child/ren to spend time watching TV or just finding ‘things to do’ around the house. Depending on the way a SAHM spends her day, her value/talents/work could and would demand different payscales if in the workforce.
$100,000 – I’ve heard that number tossed around a lot and it seems to be more for affect than based on actual facts that would be applied within the outside workforce. But again, I agree with Alara Rogers – it should certainly be higher than $16K and is absolutely higher than 0.
It’s literally impossible to be accurate in calculating the financial “worth” of a stay at home parent. It’s also quite demeaning to assume that there is any way to calculate the value of the love and good foundation a stay at home parent can give a child.
I prefer the idea that the parent staying home gets credits equal to the credits earned by the working spouse in the same time frame. This way a late in life divorce doesn’t mean that a spouse whose main purpose was to support a high-earning spouse would be unable to support themselves. Of course, this idea is based on an assumption that — if the stay at home spouse took a job, the family’s income would double — but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that folks marry others who are similar to themselves in earning capacity…
“The estimate that a SAHM does $100,000 worth of work is way off; Salary.com does this every year, and they do it by adding in a CEO’s salary and a psychiatrist’s salary.”
I think a lot of the overvaluing(?) of what a SAHP would make at the going rates is dependent on them being on-call 24/7/365. You pay extra for that shit in a reasonable economy. You’re also unlikely to find the combination package typically provided by a SAHP in an employee–the person who handles your finances probably won’t be willing to also scrub your toilet–which tends to translate into either wasted time and money or taking over the task yourself, which frequently means having to outsource things you used to do.
I really like the ss credit idea, whatever the amount. But if this country can’t even agree that everyone has the right to decent healthcare, I doubt ss credits for SAHMs will ever happen.
The thing about SS credit is that it actually appeals to the “family values” constituents out there, those who firmly believe that a woman’s place is in the home. So, it has broader appeal, perhaps than some other options. Not that I like to espouse the idea that women ought to be at home, but it’s politically smart to tap into that group. What I’d love to see, actually, is a lot more part-time work, work that’s intellectually stimulating, pays a reasonable salary, and has sliding-scale benefits. Sadly, I don’t think *that’s* happening any time soon either.
This idea is so WAY overdue I can’t believe it! Raising the next generation is the most important thing every society does! I am not myself a mother, but I would have No Problem with unpaid caregivers of all stripes getting a SS credit for the work they do. I am OK with just picking a nice round number: say, $30,000 to start with.
The thing about SS credit is that it actually appeals to the “family values” constituents out there, those who firmly believe that a woman’s place is in the home.
Well, it *would*, if they weren’t all crazies who move in lockstep with whatever their puppet masters are telling them this week.
No one has ever gotten anywhere with those people by pointing out that universal health care coverage for pregnant and post-partum women and children would help give women alternatives to abortion (I say this as someone who once seriously contemplated abortion because I might have not been able to make my monthly premium on my individually-purchased policy, and if the coverage lapsed at all, the pregnancy would become a pre-existing condition that wouldn’t be covered). No one has ever gotten Republican small business owners and Kool-aid drinkers to recognize that universal health care would remove a *huge* drain on small business and make them much more competitive with larger businesses. Republicans vote against their own self-interest all the damn time, that’s why they’re Republicans.
So while any sensible person who thinks that a traditional family with a mother at home is best *should* think that encouraging such things by giving the mother a social security credit would be helpful… I’ll bet you anything they’d be against it. Because, you see, it recognizes that women are people, who deserve to have nice things, and it shows compassion, and it costs taxpayer money. Conservatives consider all three things anathema.
Yeah, like Alara said, the “family values” crowd actually contradicts themselves on stuff like this. Things that actually support family values, as this would, are considered big government. They would fight against this kind of thing, with a line of conservative stay at home parents lining up to say they don’t want handouts.
The frustrating thing is, this is also not going to get any traction on the liberal side either since stay at home parents are widely assumed to be ultra Christian and anti-feminist. You have comments like Mrs. T (#3 on this thread) generalizing that stay at home moms are not hard working and lots of people who feel that SAH parents hurt society.
Personally, I am really glad you posted this, though. I plan on reading your blog now.
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