There is a tidy story about why Black mothers are leaving work, and it goes like this: they chose to. Taylor Austin, campaign director for workplace justice at MomsRising say the arithmetic does not support it.
Start with the price. Center-based infant care runs as high as $31,544 a year. In 41 states and Washington, D.C., center care for two children costs more than a typical mortgage, according to the Labor Department’s national child care price database.
Hold that against a paycheck. For a great many mothers, the job does not clear the cost of being able to hold the job. When the math breaks that way, leaving is not a preference. It is the only move left on the board.
“Black mothers are not opting out, they are being pushed out. The distinction is not semantic. Opting out is a story about what women want. Being pushed out is a story about what child care costs and what employers will not bend on, and only one of those is something policy can touch,” Taylor said.
It matters which story gets told, because the two lead to different places. If this is a choice, there is nothing to fix. If it is a price, there is.
Black mothers have been doing this math out loud for years. The argument worth having now is not whether they are leaving. It is what they are being charged to stay.
