*

Log In
Create Account

The Salary Talk Podcast:

Opinion: An Opposing View on Our Mother's Day Survey

We Debate With Columnist Suzanne Lucas, Who Is Opposed to Placing Monetary Value on Moms

Salary.com has been placing a high value on mothers for 12 years now. Every Mother's Day we come out with our "What's a Mom Worth?" survey in which we poll thousands of moms, find out how they're spending their time and on what tasks, apply our salary data to the 10 most popular jobs and then come up with an annual "mom salary." This year it's just shy of $113,00 for stay-at-home moms and nearly $67,000 for working moms. The way we figure it, this annual exercise lets us value moms, reaffirms the worth of mothers and gives everyone a warm and fuzzy feeling. Right?

Apparently not.

Suzanne Lucas -- who is also known as the Evil Hr Lady -- wrote a CBS Money Watch column titled "Why I Hate Salary.com's 'What's a Mom Worth?' Survey," in which she vehemently disagreed with our annual Mother's Day tradition. Lucas made many points, but her main one was "It's rather insulting to suggest that the only value in motherhood is a monetary one."

Needless to say, Salary.com knows mothers are priceless. We even said so in the very first line of our original article. But while we obviously disagreed with a lot of Lucas's points, we also think a little debate goes a long way. So we tracked Lucas down all the way in Switzerland and she graciously agreed to come on Salary Talk and hash things out with us.

Listen to see how it went and if there were any fireworks!

Salary Talk Podcast with Suzanne Lucas by Salary_TalkDownload this episode of Salary Talk

View all Eisodes of Salary TalkSubscribe Via iTunesSubscribe Via FeedburnerSubscribe to this Podcast Via SoundCloud

To learn more about today's guest: Visit Suzanne Lucas's blog at www.evilhrlady.org, or her CBS column. You can also follow her on Twitter (@RealEvilHRLady).

 

  • Wendy Ryan

    Wendy has been a product manager here at Salary.com since 2008 and has been a web professional since 1999. Read more...

  • Aaron Gouveia

    Aaron Gouveia has worked as the Content Manager of Salary.com since 2011. Prior to that, he was an award-winning journalist at several prominent New England newspapers. Read more...