This Is the (Shockingly Low!) Salary People Think Dads Should Earn

Lindsay Tigar
Updated
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

Recently, Credit Sesame conducted a survey of men and women to decide what the appropriate salary for a mom would be. The results were lower than we would have hoped (given, you know, how much work goes into carrying a babe for nine months and then taking care of it for at least 18 years): $70,811 was the suggested annual pay. In honor of Father's Day, the company decided to do another poll, to see how Dad's salary would measure up. It seems that if parenthood was a paid position, there'd be a glass ceiling for men instead of women. Survey respondents put an even lower worth on a father's work, with an average salary of $48,423.

Yep, less than $50K for all of the diapers, the checks under beds for spiders, the baseball games, the driving lessons, and everything in between.

To put that into perspective, the median household income in the United States is $58,673, a cool $10,000 away from the survey results for dads. Another way to look at it is that if men and women were up for the same job—ahem, being a parent—fathers would make 68 cents to every dollar that mothers rake in. Interestingly enough, women put the worth of dads higher than men, with their average response tipping up the scale at $49,265. Dudes, on the other hand, placed the value even lower, at $47,776. Because it's an informal survey, there's no way to really know the background of respondents or what could impact their estimates. That being said, it's surprising—and maybe a tad insulting—that fatherhood falls so much lower on this imaginary pay scale.

What do you think? What is a father's work worth? We have to say—especially when we wake up on a Saturday to a clean house, a cup of coffee waiting, and toddlers playing outside—we think they're pretty priceless.