Department of Labor: More Mothers Working Than Before Pandemic

American mothers are back to work in droves in President Joe Biden’s inflated economy after the government shuttered businesses and closed schools during the coronavirus pandemic.

The share of employed mothers is 1.9 percent higher than in February 2020, showing that “maternal employment has more or less recovered for most groups of moms,” according to a new analysis released by the U.S. Department of Labor. The return to work comes after mothers’ employment plummeted 15.7 percent from February to April 2020.

“While many mothers stopped working during [the pandemic] because their employers shut down, others left the labor force because they had no other option than to provide full-time care for their loved ones,” wrote Erin George, an economist for the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau. 

The analysis of the Current Population Survey revealed that many groups of mothers’ employment rates “now exceed pre-pandemic levels,” including Asian moms, Hispanic moms, moms with bachelor’s degrees, and moms whose youngest child is younger than six years old. For other mothers, including those with less than a bachelor’s degree and those whose youngest child is between 13 and 17 years old, the employment rates are around pre-pandemic levels, the Women’s Bureau found.

George attributed mothers’ employment growth to the increasing prevalence of telework that arose during the pandemic-era. Last year, 24.3 percent of mothers reported working from home at some point in the prior week. The rate rose to 26.8 percent for mothers whose young child is under the age of six, according to the report.

“Although telework may be a valuable strategy for integrating work and family responsibilities for some, it is by no means a panacea. Many jobs – particularly service jobs, healthcare occupations and jobs in education – often do not offer telework options,” George wrote. “Similarly, telework is often unavailable for those with less education: While 34 percent of mothers with only a bachelor’s degree and 36 percent of mothers with an advanced degree reported teleworking in the prior week, only 4 percent of mothers with less than a high school diploma reported teleworking.” 

Axios reporter Emily Peck, who wrote about the new report, noted that when the outlet publishes stories on mothers who work outside the home, “folks write in and say these women are forced into the labor market because of cost pressures.”

The outlet brushed off that concern with a comment from Tiffany Boiman, deputy director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau, who claimed there is little evidence more mothers are working because of the economy. At the same time, she argued working mothers are better positioned to handle economic insecurity.

“Whatever unexpected shocks come down the road, they are going to be better positioned to weather those if they are already working,” Boiman told the outlet. 

It should be pointed out that the cost of groceries in April was nearly 40 percent higher than in 2019, before the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of NielsenIQ data. Inflation is also not only a top concern for Americans overall, but for women, going into 2024 elections.

“Both parties are out of touch with their economic reality: I think many women are really torn right now. They’re worried about the economy, and they often find both parties out of touch with their economic reality,” Founder and CEO of Lake Research Partners and a pollster who specializes in research about women voters Celinda Lake told Forbes in March. 

“The average woman goes to the grocery store three times a week, so she’s well aware of inflation and she’s focused on food prices and healthcare costs, and both have been very high inflationary items,” Lake continued. “She’s worried about stability and security. She’s particularly worried about things consistently heading in the right direction rather than up and down.”