A caregiver visits Lana Mountford's place a few hours a week.Chona Kasinger for BISome days, Tamara Johnson wonders how her life changed so rapidly.Johnson, 58, made six figures in an executive leadership position, and when her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and dementia in 2017, she moved from New Orleans to Virginia, where she continued to work while caring for her mother.Three years after her mom's death in 2020, Johnson's husband suffered a series of catastrophic medical events. To care for him full-time, she took a temporary leave and then quit her job this year. She relied on income from her job's deferred resignation program and her savings to pay for his long-term care. Johnson estimates her family spent over $700,000 in total between her mom's and husband's care. Coming up with that money has been harder, as her husband's income from medical disability retirement was quartered."I was one of those people who was taught that you don't quit, you suck it up, and you keep going," Johnson said. "I felt like I didn't have the luxury of falling apart, because if I fell apart, then who would pick up the slack?"Tamara Johnson holds a framed photo of her mother.Valerie Plesch for BIEldercare costs have skyrocketed in recent years, and millions of Americans are unprepared. The price of nursing homes and adult day services has increased faster than overall consumer prices, as well as food, electricity, and shelter, over the last three decades. Price hikes in assisted living, at-home care, and nursing homes have left families scrambling to cover costs. It's pushed some to opt for lower-quality care, such as sending loved ones to a lower-rated facility at half the price of a luxury community.The growing eldercare cost crisis is taking a toll on families, upending lives, derailing careers, and depleting family members' finances so much that they may not be able to pay for their own future care needs. In interviews with Business Insider, dozens of families estimated the total price of eldercare for a loved one was six figures, with one woman paying $600,000 over five years for assisted living. Some had long-term care insurance or had saved throughout their lives. Many, however, said they weren't prepared for care costs to be so high. These families said they have cobbled together money from home equity, family contributions, and loans, or, in some cases, have left their jobs to care for loved ones themselves.These costs are ballooning because of a steep jump in caregiver wages combined with higher insurance premiums, transportation costs, and broader price increases for services. The mismatch between supply and demand for care workers is set to get much worse. An exodus of workers during the pandemic, followed by a federal crackdown on immigration and deportations of healthcare workers, has contributed to a caregiver shortage, experts say. And because of longer life expectancies and falling birth rates, the US in a few years will have more adults aged 65 or older than children under 18, according to US Census projections."Roughly 70% of adults over 65 will need some form of long-term care during their lifetime, yet relatively few have planned financially for that possibility," said Samir Shah, CEO of care navigation platform CareScout.Johnson, who has long-term care insurance for herself, said that despite the financial burden of caregiving, "every day is a new opportunity.""I tell people that if they make these decisions earlier, it saves a lot of headaches on the backend," Johnson said.Out-of-home care costs are through the roofLong-term care costs for nursing homes and adult day services have outpaced overall inflation for decades, up 212% and 109% since 1997, respectively. The trend is getting worse — overall inflation has been tapering off since 2023, with overall prices rising about 11%, compared to about 17% for care services.Alan Weil, senior vice president of public policy at AARP, said that caregivers are, on average, putting $7,000 of their own money into caregiving resources annually.Rising caregiver wages are often passed on to families. Wages for nursing and residential care workers have risen from $17 an hour to nearly $27 over the last decade. While average hourly earnings in this sector fall short of overall private earnings, nursing and residential care wages grew 57% from 2016 to 2026, outpacing the 47% increase across all private wages in the same period.In 2021, Lana Mountford, 75, moved into a one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living facility for $4,300 per month. After a major surgery, she moved into a two-bedroom unit for $5,500 a month, which rose to nearly $7,000 over two years. Many of the services she relied on, like laundry and frequent caregiver visits, went away with changes in management.She moved into a development for people aged 55 and older, buying a home in cash for $580,000, which she calculated would save her money in the long term. A caregiver comes for six
Don't miss out on breaking stories and in-depth articles.
