A real gift for mom

Happy Mother's Day!

A warning, however: Economists expect consumers struggling to hold onto their homes and meet rising gas and food prices to spend conservatively on mom today. Retail forecasts predict Mother's Day 2008 spending to be $15.8 billion, barely above last year's $15.7 billion.

Turns out those tax rebate checks from Uncle Sam's $168 billion economic-stimulus program won't be so stimulating for mom.

That's just fine. Mothers need something more important than chocolate, restaurant reservations and flowers. They need relief from tax policies that single their gender out for pain.

Women work an average of 12 fewer years than men, largely due to child rearing and other family responsibilities. And they earn on average 23 percent less than men.

The income gap really hurts at retirement, when women can expect 42 percent less in retirement income, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement.

That helps explain why more than 11 percent of women ages 65 and older live below the poverty line and why 60 percent of elderly women are single, widowed or divorced, compared with only a quarter of elderly men.

Divorce is no friend to women, either. Nearly a fifth of divorced women live in poverty, compared with 8 percent of men. According to the Women's Institute, divorce may also impact Social Security benefits since divorced women may claim benefits based on an ex-spouse's work record but the marriage must have lasted at least 10 years. Most first and second marriages don't last that long.

The data taken from the U.S Census Bureau, the Labor Department and the Social Security Administration fill out a sobering picture of the economic state of women.

Knowledge about the economic disparities faced by women is important. But it isn't enough. Also needed are wage adjustments to narrow the income gap between men and women. Social Security benefits based on income and years in the work force weigh against women, raising the need for a "mommy benefit" that takes into account women's often-uncompensated work.

Today is the annual day set aside to honor motherhood. What ought to remain at the end of the day, however, is a commitment to removing the structural barriers that single out mothers.