Figures show why Mom can’t stay home with the kids

This is the first weekly installment of articles designed to answer the most common questions about the new Cardinal Kids Child Learning Center.

The most often asked question hovering around the newly proposed child-learning center has been, “Why can’t mothers stay home and take care of their children like they used to?”

The answer comes from a 2017 nationwide study of living wage calculations done for each county in all 50 states (http://livingwage.mit.edu/).
Researchers from MIT tabulated living expenses for a variety of family sizes and calculated what an individual must earn to support their family.

Values were calculated per adult in a family.

While the table below offers up to 13 examples of family sizes, one can most easily refer to the bordered column for two parents and one child to see that one parent must earn an annual salary of $43,814 in order to allow the other parent to remain home with a child.

Josh Rayford, Learning Center board chairman, said “When you factor in the per capita income for the average individual income, it’s apparent that many heads of households do not earn the $43,814 annual wage needed to allow a parent to stay home.”