Study: Stay-at-Home Mom Worth Nearly $117,000 a Year

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If a stay-at-home mom could be compensated in dollars rather than personal satisfaction and unconditional love, she'd rake in a nifty sum of nearly $117,000 a year.

That's according to a pre-Mother's Day study released Thursday by Salary.com, a Waltham, Mass.-based firm that studies workplace compensation.

The eighth annual survey calculated a mom's market value by studying pay levels for 10 job titles with duties that a typical mom performs, ranging from housekeeper and day care center teacher to van driver, psychologist and chief executive officer.

This year, the annual salary for a stay-at-home mom would be $116,805, while a working mom who also juggles an outside job would get $68,405 for her motherly duties.

Ed note: No mention is made of what's men's unpaid work is worth. One can imagine that plumbing, auto repair, carpentry, painting, and landscaping work would add up pretty quickly too.

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probably funded by vawa. just before mom's day too. how obvious.

notice how they had to throw in a c.e.o. salary to get it
up above $2/hr? and just wait 'till the kids are grown and she can
step out into the marketplace and knock 'em dead. probably have to get some
affirmative action or title ix law to force employers to hire them.

i always get a kick outta the annual one that tells us how many
hundreds of thousands $$$ it takes to raise a kid in the u.s.
wonder how middle income people raise a passel on average incomes?

this study looks like nonsense, and it is, but i guarantee you feminists
use these numbers to validate high rates of CS and alimony paid out
to those poor poor victims in waiting. i've heard them whip these numbers
out time and time again over the years to make their point in a discussion.
and the black robes only need a half-arsed excuse to comply.

naive (Mirriam-Webster): marked by unaffected simplicity

do they really believe we are that stupid? they must. they put it out there
like it was real.

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Remember the 1980s song from Paul Simon "If you'll be my bodyguard, I will be your long lost pal." Well, a husband essentially acts as a bodyguard for a wife whenever he is with her i.e. he is expected to defend her. This is the "protect" part of providing and protecting.

The average salary of a bodyguard can be found here:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Bodyguard/Hourly_Rate

I'll take $25/hr. as a reasonable average in the United States, although places like New York City have a going rate of $50/hr.

There are 8760 hours in a year (i.e. 24 x 365). Assuming a man has a 40 hour work week 52 weeks a year will give you 2080 hours a year a man is at work. This means that 6590 hours a year the average man will be with his wife when he is not at work. OK, I didn't take into account commuting and overtime. Subtract 260 hours a year for commuting (assuming 30 minutes each way average, or 5 hours a week times 52 weeks a year). That leaves you with 6330 hours a week. Let's assume the average overtime worked per week is 5 hours (an understatement in many cases, but this is just an average). That would be 5 times 52, or 260 hours. That leaves 6070 hours a year that a husband is with his wife, and therefore an unpaid bodyguard.

Now, 6070 hours a year multiplied by $25 per hour comes to ...

$151,750 per year! Wow! And that's from a man's bodyguard duties alone.

Now add to that the average man's salary. In 2003 the Census Bureau found this to be $33,517.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_Gender

Adjusting for inflation and salary increases of about 3% a year, this would come to about $38,000 per year for 2008.

Add this to $151,750, and what do you get?

$189,750 per year for the average husband who earns and average salary and spends an average amount of time with his wife as an unpaid bodyguard.

And this doesn't even cover "plumbing, auto repair, carpentry, painting, and landscaping work" mentioned by the editor. I don't have time to calculate that here, but maybe someone could add to the nearly $190,000 a year for what a man contributes to his wife by earning a salary and protecting her (the "provide and protect" part of being a man with a partner).

I'm sure we could get the annual contribution of a husband over $200,000 a year by adding the extra duties of plumbing, auto repair, carpentry, painting, and landscaping work.

Note: Granted, an average man may not get the training that a professional bodyguard does, but neither would an average stay at home mom be comparable to a psychologist or CEO in training.

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in the words of gaming slang : "PWNED!!1!11"

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One of the things that make these types of reports so bogus, is how the authors hypothetically award the salary of an expert, to someone who is 99.9% of the time working as a novice.

For example: Doctoral level clinical psychologists typically earn over 110 graduate credits, including specialized and supervised clinical training. And a doctoral program usually takes 4-5 years to complete.

After this training, are years of clinical practice. Word gets out about a therapist's skills, and their practice grows. And they earn more money.

Simply popping out a puppy and hanging around to blow a little nose and wipe a little butt (while bitching about a lazy husband) is hardly the same kind of training. So why should it be hypothetically awarded the same salary?

A father could hire out all of occupations on this list. It would probably be a lot cheaper and more efficient. And with a lot less nagging than what spews from the cake-hole of the typically American wife/mother.

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This stupid thing has been around for years like houseflys and is just annoying. It has been debunked throughly but still keeps coming back from the dead like a vampire.

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But of course a German shepard does the same thing.

However, there is no SPCA to protect men.

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My response to the issue.

I know we won't be seeing a similar salary assumption on Father's day. We'll get told we need a tie and to go back to work.

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Feminist logic at its best.

Many jobs have multiple responsibilities and duties you don't get $117,000.

Whats more amazing is that the mothers WANTED the babies its more a hobby than a job.

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