In more bad — if unsurprising — economic news, married mothers have more of a gap between jobs and are less likely to find new jobs than married fathers. The kicker? Once they land one of those hard-to-find positions, they make a lot less than dads — even after controlling for education level and previous job and earnings histories. “There does appear to be a motherhood penalty,” says Brian Serafini, a University of Washington doctoral candidate in sociology who co-authored research about the “mom-cession.” Perhaps it’s because those moms are earning as much as $9,000 a year less than married dads that a new voting demographic was coined in this year’s election. “Walmart moms” are more worried about the family budget than the national budget. With depressing research findings like these, can you blame them?