In honor of Mother’s Day, all of us working moms deserve a break. But if a spa day, a raise, or a day off from cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc., just isn’t in the cards—deadlines, toddlers, and housework, after all, don’t disappear for the holiday—we can at least take solace in the fact that working in New York State affords us a fair advantage over many of our working-mom counterparts across the country.
How so? According to financial research firm WalletHub, New York ranks as the 17th-best state in the nation for working moms. Using data from the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, among other sources, WalletHub analyzed 12 key factors—access to pediatric services, women’s median salary (adjusted for cost of living), parental leave policies, and more—to create their list.
The firm used those factors to rate each state and The District of Columbia across three key dimensions: childcare (looking at daycare quality and costs, access to pediatric services, and quality of school systems), professional opportunities (examining gender pay gap, ratio of female to male executives, median women’s salary as adjusted for cost of living, unemployment rate, and other factors), and work-life balance (parental leave policies and the length of the average woman’s workday and commute time).
As 17th overall, New York scored 8th, 16th, and 38th, respectively on each of the three dimensions. Our state was also ranked 1st for best daycare systems—but at a price: we have the second-highest childcare costs in the nation, according to the report. Only Washington, DC, was found to be more expensive.
Overall, the report found that so-called politically left-leaning “blue states” are often friendlier to working mothers than the “red states” led by Republicans. Blue states ranked an average of 18.5 across all categories, compared to an average of 34.3 for red states (a lower score is considered better).
The best 5 states for working moms are:
Vermont
Minnesota
Wisconsin
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
The worst 5 states for working moms are:
Nevada
Alabama
Mississippi
South Carolina
Louisiana
Find the complete report here on WalletHub’s website, here.