Motherhood, Work, and the Black Economy

For Mother’s Day, the Joint Center released a policy snapshot titled Motherhood, Work, and the Black Economy.

Black mothers are central to the economic security of Black children and families. They are workers, caregivers, household anchors, and community builders. Their labor helps sustain families and communities, and their earnings are often essential to whether children have stable housing, food, transportation, childcare, health coverage, and educational opportunity.

However, the economic realities facing Black mothers show that work alone has not produced equal security. Among mothers with children under 18, Black mothers have the highest labor force participation rate of any major racial or ethnic group.1 Black mothers are also more likely than white mothers to be key, sole, primary, or co-breadwinners in their households. At the same time, Black mothers working full-time, year-round, are paid only 56 cents for every dollar paid to white fathers. By comparison, white mothers working full-time, year-round are paid 75 cents for every dollar paid to white fathers.

Mother’s Day offers an opportunity to examine the economic conditions of Black mothers and the children and families who depend on them. Those conditions are shaped by labor force participation, breadwinner status, household income, pay equity, the Child Tax Credit, paid leave, and the broader policy choices that influence family economic stability.

Read the full snapshot here, or below.