GAO: Unpaid Household Labor Worth Up to $6 Trillion Annually, Excluded From GDP

Unpaid household labor in the U.S. is worth as much as $6 trillion a year — roughly one-fifth of GDP — but goes uncounted in official economic statistics, according to a September Government Accountability Office report. The omission distorts measures of growth, living standards and productivity, economists warn. More than 87% of Americans age 15 and older performed unpaid household work on a typical day, averaging 3.72 hours, the GAO found. From 1965 through 2020, conventional GDP grew an average 6.3% a year, versus 6.1% under a Bureau of Economic Analysis measure incorporating household labor — a gap reflecting women's entry into the workforce without accounting for lost home output. Women performed 54% of unpaid household work between 2021 and 2024, spending more time on childcare than men, the GAO said. Economist Nancy Folbre said excluding unpaid work yields a "misleading picture of relative living standards."