Report ranks Massachusetts the best state for working mothers
Massachusetts earned its No. 1 ranking in part thanks to the state’s paid family and medical leave program.
In normal times, being a working mother is no small feat, but the acrobatics such a task requires during a pandemic are especially demanding. That may be why women made up 80% of the 1.1 million people who left the workforce in the fall of 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Indeed, balancing working from home with child care and remote school is enough to make any mom scream — sometimes even primally, under the lights, with dozens of fellow moms.
This Mother’s Day, however, there’s reason for Massachusetts moms to rejoice: The Bay State is the best in the country for working mothers, according to a new report from WalletHub.
Massachusetts earned its No. 1 ranking in part thanks to the state’s paid family and medical leave program. The state also was praised for having the lowest average length of a woman’s work week and the ninth lowest percentage of single-mother families in poverty.
The high ranking overall does come with a cost, however. Though it offers the 17th best day-care quality of any state, Massachusetts is also home to some of the highest child-care costs in the country, second only to Nebraska, according to the report.
The report, which analyzed data from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., doled out ratings based on metrics in three categories – child care, professional opportunities, and work-life balance. Louisiana took the bottom spot, ranking 50th in both the child care and professional opportunities categories.
New England swept the top three spots, with Connecticut and Rhode Island coming in second and third, respectively. Maine (No. 14) was the only state in the region that missed the top 10.
Here are the states/districts that made the top 10:
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
- Minnesota
- Wisconsin
- Washington, D.C.
- Vermont
- New Jersey
- New York
- New Hampshire
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