Providing care to the elderly costs friends and relatives about $522 billion a year in the United States, according to a study released Monday by Santa Monica-based RAND Corp., which found that Americans spend roughly 30 billion hours a year providing such care.
Hiring unskilled workers to provide that care, at minimum wage, would cost $221 billion, while skilled nursing care would cost $642 billion annually, according to the study.
“Our findings provide a new and better estimate of the monetary value of the care that millions of relatives and friends provide to the nation’s elderly,” said Amalavoyal V. Chari, the study’s lead author and a lecturer at the University of Sussex. “These numbers are huge and help put the enormity of this largely silent and unseen workforce into perspective.”
The study was based on information collected in the 2011 and 212 American Time Use Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and asks participants about the time they spend helping elderly relatives with their daily activities.
According to RAND, three out of five people providing care for the elderly also have jobs, and many of them often have to reduce their work hours, hence reducing their income.
Other studies have estimated that about $211 billion is spent annually on formal long-term care for the elderly in the United States, at facilities such as assisted-living centers, adult day care and nursing homes. The bulk of the financial cost of providing care, however, is borne by working adults, according to RAND.
“Our findings explain the interest in workplace flexibility policies being considered by a number of states that provide paid time off from work for caregivers, as well as programs such as Medicaid’s Cash and Counseling program that allows family caregivers to be paid for their assistance,” according to Ateev Mehrotra, co-author of the study and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
— City News Service