New York Ranks 9th On List of Best States For Working Moms

Would you be surprised to know that women currently make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce? Honestly, with the cost of living these days, this statistic isn't exactly a shocker. It seems like these days you hear less and less about stay-at-home moms, and more about women in the workplace. Last year (2025), statistics show that about 74% of moms with children under the age of 18 were employed.

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According to Payscale's gender gap report, even though women do have a strong presence in the workplace, women currently only earn about 82% of what men are making per hour.

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Best & Worst States For Working Moms

As a working mom, well, let's double down on that actually, a working single mom with two jobs, studies like this hit close to home for me.

A recent study by WalletHub analyzed key factors across 17 metrics, comparing the 50 states, and District of Columbia, to assess the best and worst states for working moms in 2026.

The main areas that WalletHub focused on in their comparison were Child Care, Professional Opportunities, and Work-Life Balance, each assigned a specific weight and broken down into sub categories for the purpose of the study.

Where Did New York Land On The List?

When compared to the other 50 (states and DC), New York's overall ranking was 9th best. Ranking extremely high for categories like Pediatricians per Capita (1st), Daycare Quality (2nd), Parental Leave Policy Score (7th), Gender Pay Gap (9th), New York is surprisingly a decent choice for working moms.

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With regard to daycare systems, New York was only outranked by Massachusetts (who took the #2 spot overall on the list), however, NY as a whole dropped due to the fact that our overall childcare cost puts us dead last at #51.

Connecticut topped the list (#1 best state) with extremely low unemployment rates for women, great childcare quality, generous parental-leave, and when it comes to gender pay gap, women are currently earning over 89% of what men make, above the national average.

The full WalletHub report contains a deeper dive into the comparisons across the US, and can be accessed here.