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How Much Is Your Unpaid Labor Worth?

And Where Does All that Money Go?

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To make a society run, all kinds of work needs to happen
A lot of this work is unpaid.

Family members do many tasks on any given week to make households and our society run, including...

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Cooking & meal prep
Cleaning
Going to Work
Washing Car
Doing an Oil Change
Pet care
Changing Diapers
Bathing Children
Buying Groceries

Mowing the Lawn
Helping with Homework
Helping with E-Learning
Side Gig
Caring for Elderly Family
Washing Clothes
Putting Kids to Bed
Dishes
Doctors Visits
[and many more tasks!]

Who do we guess is doing more of the

unpaid tasks? Why do we think this the case? What could change it?

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Women do more than 75% of unpaid work
If U.S. women were paid minimum wage for the hours they spent doing care work—housework, preparing meals, performing child care, tending to the sick and elderly, etc. which adds up to 4 hours per day—they would have made $1.5 trillion last year (and that’s the low-end estimate)

AND this does not include the community work women of color disproportionately do to fight for and address community needs not met by the government.

If You Guessed Women, You Guessed Right

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Where does the $1.5 trillion go? Corporate profits!

Unpaid labor helps big business function, the $1.5 trillion that women should be getting is really a subsidy to corporations and their shareholders.

And our government lets big businesses keep this subsidy in the form of tax breaks, who then make more profits from the low-wages they pay workers.

FACT: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that tax cuts from 2017 legislation alone will increase budget deficits by 2.7 Trillion over 10 years

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CEOs benefit the most from this system

Together, let’s guess these figures below:

The average Fortune 500 company CEO makes ______ times more than the average worker in that company.

On average, Fortune 500 company CEOs make ______ a year in compensation

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Now, let’s digest these figures below:

The average Fortune 500 company CEO makes _264_ times more than the average worker in that company.

On average, Fortune 500 company CEOs make _$14.8 Million_ a year in compensation.

Example: An average McDonald's worker makes $9,291 a year while

McDonalds CEO Christopher Kempczinski makes $5.2 Million a year.

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Let’s Reclaim the $$ and Give it Back to Women!

So, women contribute at least $1.5 trillion to corporate profits every year. If government were to tax corporations and give that back to women and their families, what could it pay for?

Making the improvements in the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit permanent would cost about $300 billion a year.

Ensuring Paid Family Leave costs $200 billion a year.

Giving every person in America $12,000 a year would cost about $2.8 Trillion.

GIVE IT BACK TO WOMEN!

Here’s the facts. Women contribute at least $1.5 Trillion, and it’s essential to the functioning of big business. Big business can’t create profits without the unpaid labor of women. What if the government taxed big business profits and gave that money back to women and their families, the people who created the money in the first place? Back to families through the CTC, Paid Leave or a guaranteed income.

If we reclaim this money that belongs to women and caregivers, we will be investing in our social well being. In fact, according to a recent study, countries with robust welfare programs have more equity in unpaid labor, meaning unpaid labor decreases for women! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/04/opinion/women-unpaid-labor.html

So what do we do?

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What Do We Do?

Put pressure on Congress to invest in a caring economy and in our families instead rewarding corporations for underpaying workers.

Making the improvements to CTC and EITC permanent is a good start towards valuing unpaid labor, as is ensuring every family is eligible, regardless of immigration status.

It’s good for the economy, it’s good for families, let’s make it happen