This Mother's Day month, it's time to get real: We live in a country that often claims to worship mothers but, in truth, becoming a mother puts women at a tremendous lifelong economic risk. In fact, being a mom is now a greater predictor of wage and hiring discrimination than being a woman.
 
You may have thought Mother’s Day was last week, but did you know that today is, infuriatingly, another kind of Mother’s Day? Today is Moms’ Equal Pay Day 2017 – the day that marks how long mothers have to work in the new year to be paid what fathers were paid in the previous calendar year. Mothers in this country are paid, on average, just 71 cents for every dollar paid to fathers. Moms of color and single moms experience even greater, more punitive wage gaps. For instance, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic fathers, Black mothers are paid just 51 cents, Native mothers 49 cents and Latina mothers 46 cents. For single mothers, the wage gap is 55 cents. This is disgraceful – a shameful measure of how little we, as a nation, truly value mothers and, by extension, families.
 
In every single state, moms are paid less than dads. For millions of women, becoming a mother brings a lifetime of economic risk – and families, communities and our economy suffer as a result.
 
At this time when many moms are the primary or only breadwinners for their families, this persistent wage discrimination is devastating -- and it’s devastating not just to families, but also to businesses and to our consumer-driven economy because moms also make most purchases for their families.
 
We need Congress to reject President Trump’s draconian budget, which sets families up to fail, and instead champion true pro-family and pro-economy strategies proven to help close the wage gap and boost our national economy -- policies like paycheck and workplace fairness; paid family and medical leave; affordable, high-quality early learning opportunities, like childcare and pre-K; earned sick days; accommodations for pregnant workers; and raising the minimum wage.