Checking the Marketplace’s Daily Pulse, our offbeat take on the health of the U.S. economy.

There’s word today that just over half of working mothers in the U.S. get paid maternity leave from their employers. This includes women who have to use their sick pay and vacation time in addition to any pay from the boss.

The Census Bureau says two-thirds of the mothers who got some kind of paid maternity leave had college degrees. Without a high school diploma it was just 18 percent.

That income gap between college graduates and high school drop outs is widening, and that drops pace of the Marketplace Daily Pulse today.