Being a Dad Is Worth Less Than $25,000 a Year

For taking on the typical responsibilities of a Dad, men would earn an annual salary of $25,738 this year. That’s an almost 4% decrease compared to 2015, according to Insure.com, which calculated the salary using Bureau of Labor statistics data to assign a value to some of the most common tasks.

While Dad's salary is still more than the $15,080 the average full-time minimum wage employee earns annually, Insure estimated Mom would earn a whopping $65,523. Why the difference? Insure reported that while Dad spends 51.5 hours a week on fatherly tasks, Mom spends 148 hours.

Of the 13 activities associated with fathers that Insure analyzed, helping with homework and driving the kids were the ones men spent the most time doing, over 850 hours annually. But taking care of family finances, which Insure estimated dads spend 26 hours a year doing, was the best paid at $33.63 per hour. About 8.8% of the total salary came from Dad’s role as the family accountant.

The reason Dad's pay declined from 2015 is because 8 of his jobs decreased in value, including his role as a plumber, which dropped nearly 30% in value from last year.

This is the first year in Insure’s study that fathers' salaries dipped, but consumer analyst Penny Gusner says it’s just a “sign of the times,” noting the average worker’s income increased less than 1% since 200. “Unfortunately, Dad’s salary was bound to stall out; wage stagnation has been pervasive in the U.S.,” Gusner says.

About a third of the 1,000 people Insure surveyed reported their house follows the “traditional” gender-based division of daily tasks, while about 41% share tasks equally.