It Turns Out That Illinois is a Pretty Good State for Working Moms

With Mother’s Day around the corner and more than 70 percent of moms with young children working today, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2017’s Best & Worst States for Working Moms.  And, guess what? The Land of Lincoln is among the best places for a working mom to be.

So, what do you look for in trying to determine what makes a state conducive to the Business Woman/Mom dynamic? Here's what WalletHub did:

In order to determine the best and worst states for working moms, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three key dimensions: 1) Child Care, 2) Professional Opportunities and 3) Work-Life Balance. Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Child Care Aware® of America, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Council for Community and Economic Research, National Partnership for Women & Families and WalletHub research.

First, the 5 best states for working mothers:

1) Vermont

2) Minnesota

3) New Jersey

4) Delaware

5) Connecticut

Now, the 5 worst states for working mothers:

47) Alaska

48) Arizona

49) Nevada

50) Louisiana

51) Alabama

As for our state of Illinois, we come in at the #10 spot overall. Here are some of Illinois' numbers:

Life as a Working Mom in Illinois (1=Best; 25=Avg.)
7th – Day-Care Quality
29th – Child-Care Costs (Adjusted for Median Women’s Salary)
13th – Gender Pay Gap (Women’s Earnings as % of Men’s)
30th – Ratio of Female Executives to Male Executives
3rd – Median Women’s Salary (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
29th – Female Unemployment Rate
10th – Parental-Leave Policy Score
20th – Avg. Length of Woman’s Workday (in Hours)