In 2024, 74.0% of U.S. mothers with children under age 18 were in the labor force. The rate was 68.3% for mothers whose youngest child was under 6 and 78.0% for mothers whose youngest child was age 6–17.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates indicate that in 1965 women averaged about 40 hours per week in household-production activities such as cooking, cleaning, childcare, shopping, gardening, odd jobs, and related travel. Men averaged
BEA household-production satellite-account estimates indicate that including unpaid household production would have raised measured U.S. GDP by roughly 37–39% in 1965, depending on the BEA vintage and method used.
Historical time-diary data summarized by Pew found that mothers averaged about 51 hours per week of paid work, housework, and childcare combined in 1965 and about 53 hours in 2011. The composition changed sharply: paid work rose while house
According to the 2024 American Time Use Survey, women averaged 2.34 hours per day in household activities versus 1.67 hours for men. Among adults living with children under 18, women averaged 1.79 hours per day of primary childcare versus 1
The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices reported that full-day care for one child in 2022 ranged from about $6,552 to $15,600 per year depending on the child’s age, provider type, and location. That represented
Among U.S. households with children age 13 or younger, 23.9% paid for childcare in 2024. Those paying households spent an average of $10,520 annually, about 5.6% of household income.
The 2025 World Happiness Report, using U.S. time-use data, reported that about 26% of American adults ate all of their meals alone on the previous day in 2023. Among Americans living with other people, 18% ate all meals alone in 2023, compa
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 prohibited discrimination in credit transactions on the basis of sex or marital status. Regulation B subsequently required creditors to make individual credit accounts available to creditworthy marri
Using CPI-based purchasing-power calculations in the Broadside working research, $72,000 in 2018 is equivalent to about $95,700 in 2026. That is roughly $23,700 more income required to maintain the same CPI-measured purchasing power, a cumu
