Work at Home Education Center

Stay-at-home mother's work worth $138,095 a year??

If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.

This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to Salary.com Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts.

The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.

A mother who holds full-time job outside the home would earn an additional $85,939 for the work she does at home, Salary.com.

Last year she would have earned $85,876 for her at-home work, it said.

Salary.com

Public Comments

1. i'd be happy with just a fourth of that. if i worked outside the home, i could DOUBLE our income and we could already be living in a house instead of an apartment. wouldn't THAT be nice! but, we all realize the sacrifices we're making by choosing to be at home: financially, physically, and psychologically...and the truth is, the benefit it has on our kids and our home life FAR outweigh the sacrifices. it sure WOULD be nice to get paid for it. even a $100/ wk would help our family GREATLY!!

2. Salary.com went a little overboard with that. They are estimating that based on 40 hours per week mulitiplied by the number of specific occupations. Of course, we all know that stay at home mom's (god bless them all) do a lot of work and wear a lot of hats, but not always at the same time. Plus, they usually do not have advanced degrees, such as one a psychologist would have.

But yes...stay at home mom's could earn a good deal of money if they were paid for it.

But if couch potatoes got paid, I'd make some good money, too. Just kidding, I'm too busy to have time to be a couch potato.