When it comes to managing the household grocery list, remembering all the various teachers at school, and juggling the family doctors’ appointments, Katherine de la Cruz has it all on her plate while working full-time as a paralegal.
“My brain is on, on, on 24/7. I think even while I sleep, I’m dreaming about what’s going to happen,” said de la Cruz, who lives inArizonawith her husband, toddler, two foster kids and another baby expected soon. “Then my husband tries to calm me down, but bless his heart, like, I mean, moms take out most of the family stuff anyways.”
She’s concerned about the cost of food and childcare as Donald Trump’s on-again and off-againtariffscontinue to threaten higher prices nationwide. In the last year alone, de la Cruz said her family’s monthly grocery bill has already doubled, going from roughly $400 a month to more than $800 for her household.
“Now, not only are the kids growing up, not only is the food going up, but I feel like there’s much less food coming into like these packages,” said de la Cruz. “And this is aside from, sometimes you want to eat out, sometimes you just want pizza, like, you know, and so now, on top of the groceries that we just paid, we gotta pay delivery fees.”
In Maryland, Chauntay Lawson said she’s juggling similar concerns. Lawson and her husband have a two-year-old daughter, and even with two incomes, she said the cost of gas, utilities and food is putting immense pressure on their budget.
“We can’t be in a position where we lose our home, or we lose just our basic necessities, because of the price of things or just overspending,” said Lawson.
As of1 June, tariffs are estimated to cost the average American household roughly $2,500 this year, according to theBudget Lab at Yale, a non-partisan policy research center. The analysis also projects that tariffs would disproportionately affect clothing and textiles, leading to higher prices for shoes and apparel.
Currently, there is a universal US tariff of 10% in effect, but this may change for many countries once the 90-day pause on higher reciprocal tariffs ends in early July.
While trade talks between theU.S. and Chinacontinue, de la Cruz is already bracing for higher costs. She’s cutting back by trying to lower bills for car insurance, cell service and internet. However, she and her husband, Francisco, a woodworker, are also considering more significant changes, such as selling one of their cars or downsizing to a smaller home.
“Although we are coming up with ideas, there’s always a lot of cons coming with it, because if we do leave our nice neighborhood and end up going somewhere else, education is going to be lower or it’s not going to be as safe,” said de la Cruz.
Like many women in the workplace, both de la Cruz and Lawson are also facing another financial challenge – the persistent gender pay gap between the earnings of fathers and mothers in the United States.
“I don’t even need to see the numbers to know that that’s true,” said Lawson, a technical program manager. “I feel that every day at work.”
In its latest analysis, theInstitute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR)reports that mothers who worked full-time jobs earned roughly 74 cents for every dollar paid to working fathers in 2023, the most recent year for this data. That means mothers are earning about $19,000 less a year for full-time work.
“We’re talking about people who are fully engaged in the labor market, and even when they’re fully engaged in the labor market, they’re earning less,” said Dr. Kate Bahn, chief economist at IWPR.
The disparity is worse for mothers of color. According toIWPR’s data, Latina mothers earned approximately 43 cents, Native American mothers earned 48 cents, and Black mothers earned 49 cents for every dollar earned by white fathers in 2023. IWPR’s report shows that white mothers earned about 62 cents, and Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) mothers earned about 73 cents for every dollar earned by white fathers across all earnings.
Dr. Bahn said that several policies would help mothers and caregivers achieve a more equitable work-life-family balance, including paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave, flexible work schedules, and access to affordable childcare.
However she stressed this long-term trend of the parenthood pay divide underscores a deeper issue. While women have increased their participation in the labor force in various jobs over the last 50 to 60 years, Dr. Bahn said another form of discrimination has persisted in the workplace as well.
She calls it the “motherhood penalty”, a form of unfair bias and discrimination against working mothers that negatively affects their wages.
“Some of this is a belief that mothers might be less productive, but then, even when mothers are productive, they’re also viewed as less likable,” said Dr. Bahn. “…Then the other side of it is that fathers are paid more, all else equal, because there’s like a fatherhood bonus. … so they’re more likely to pay them more.”
According to the IWPR report, the “motherhood penalty” begins after the birth of a first child and persists throughout a mother’s career in the workplace.
“It’s always a fight to prove that I can still do my job and be a mom,” said Lawson. “I almost feel like I under-share my motherhood journey with colleagues and supervisors, because I don’t want them to ever think that I’m not giving 100% to work because I’m picking up my child from her classes, or I’m distracted or anything.”