How Rising Home Care Costs Are Breaking the Middle Class

by Ken Altucker for USA Today

Home care and assisted living costs for older adults and people with disabilities have surged over the past five years, straining affordability for middle-class families who struggle to pick up the tab, AARP said in a March 12 report.

The AARP report said the cost of the most common type of long-term services − home care and assisted living services − surged nearly 50% from 2019 through 2024, far outpacing median income growth of 22% for senior households.

Costs of other long-term services also grew more quickly than income for households that must pay for this care without public aid. Adult day service costs jumped 33%, and nursing home care costs increased by up to 25%, AARP said.

“When this hits, it hits families harder than they expect – and at a higher cost,” said Alan Weil, director of AARP’s public policy institute.

More than half of adults who turned 65 between 2021 and 2025 will need long-term care services in their lifetime, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

But families often aren’t prepared to handle costs of caring for aging adults, Weil said.

An AARP survey in 2022 said about half of the adults age 50 or older mistakenly believed Medicare, the federal health insurance program for adults 65 and older, covers care in a nursing home or home care from a home health aide.

While Medicare doesn’t cover such costs, Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low income families, does pay for nursing home care for millions of low-income adults.

But for middle-income families who don’t qualify for Medicaid, costs can rise quickly. About 1 in 7 older adults had out-of-pocket costs that exceeded $100,000 in 2020, AARP said.

For families who can’t afford to hire home health assistants, the burden of providing care often falls on unpaid caregivers. These caregivers, often family members, contributed about $600 billion in care in 2021, AARP said.

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