--- title: More Women Are Breadwinners Than Ever Before description: More working mothers are their family's sole breadwinner than before, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress. canonical: https://time.com/4607876/female-breadwinners-rise-report/ author: Samantha Cooney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-20T17:25:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:04:11.061Z og:title: More Women Are Their Family's Sole Breadwinner Than Ever Before og:description: Of course og:url: https://time.com/4607876/female-breadwinners-rise-report/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt094a84ecd10a2604/6988b395e20a879643a9393c/working-mothers-breadwinners-report.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5122 og:image:height: 2881 og:image:alt: House made of paper money on top of pile of coins og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: More Women Are Their Family's Sole Breadwinner Than Ever Before twitter:description: Of course twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt094a84ecd10a2604/6988b395e20a879643a9393c/working-mothers-breadwinners-report.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # More Women Are Their Family's Sole Breadwinner Than Ever Before > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Dec 20, 2016 5:25 PM UTC  Getty Images  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Dec 20, 2016 5:25 PM UTC More women are bringing home the bacon than ever before. According to [a new report](https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2016/12/19/295203/breadwinning-mothers-are-increasingly-the-u-s-norm/) from [the Center for American Progress](https://www.americanprogress.org/), 42% of mothers were the sole or primary family breadwinner last year. An additional 22.4% were co-breadwinners, meaning that they were responsible for between 25 to 49% of total family earnings. This new data represents [a continued increase over the past few years](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/economy/women-as-family-breadwinner-on-the-rise-study-says.html), according to the report. Black and Latina women are more likely to be a family’s sole breadwinner, with 70.7% of black mothers and 40.5% of Latina mothers bringing home the majority of a family’s income (in comparison to 37.4% of white mothers.) And most of the women accounted for in those statistics are single mothers — only about 25% of black mothers and 40% were married. “With the majority of women working for pay, and their earnings being so vital to the economic well-being of their families, the days of full-time, stay-at-home mothers are long past,” the report says. “Women are crucial economic actors for their families, local communities, and the overall U.S. economy.” **_Read More_**: [_Kirsten Gillibrand Says We Need to Change the Conversation About ‘Having It All’_](http://motto.time.com/4202685/kirsten-gillibrand-women-work/?iid=sr-link1) But the Center for American Progress says that workplaces need to adapt their policies to reflect the new norm of female breadwinners. Currently, only 13% of U.S. companies offer some form of paid family leave, [according to](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/13-percent-of-private-industry-workers-had-access-to-paid-family-leave-in-march-2016.htm) the U.S. Department of Labor. “The negative impacts stemming from a lack of progressive workplace policies tend to fall primarily on women—especially mothers—who are the family members most likely tasked with bringing home a paycheck while also providing the majority of care to children and elderly family members,” the report says. “Change is necessary to ensure that workplace policies match the realities of today’s working families.” \[H/T [New York _Magazine_](http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/more-working-moms-are-breadwinners-in-the-u-s-than-before.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4607876/female-breadwinners-rise-report/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4607876/female-breadwinners-rise-report/"},"headline":"More Women Are Their Family's Sole Breadwinner Than Ever Before","datePublished":"2016-12-20T17:25:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:04:11.061Z","description":"Of course","url":"https://time.com/4607876/female-breadwinners-rise-report/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt094a84ecd10a2604/6988b395e20a879643a9393c/working-mothers-breadwinners-report.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Cooney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt094a84ecd10a2604/6988b395e20a879643a9393c/working-mothers-breadwinners-report.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"House made of paper money on top of pile of coins","caption":"House made of paper money on top of pile of coins","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4607876/female-breadwinners-rise-report/","name":"More Women Are Their Family's Sole Breadwinner Than Ever Before"}}]}] ```