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• Posted March 27, 2026

Family Caregivers Provide $1 Trillion In Annual Labor, AARP Says

Family caregivers provide more than $1 trillion in labor every year in the U.S., most of it unpaid, a new AARP report says.

Their work forms the backbone of the nation’s long-term care system and is essential to helping millions of American seniors maintain their independence, experts said.

“Family caregivers are holding up a system that millions of Americans rely on every day,” AARP’s CEO Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan said in a news release.

But this patchwork system of care comes at a cost to society.

Tens of millions of Americans are unable to contribute to the U.S economy because they’re looking after older parents, spouses, neighbors and other loved ones, the report found.

Employer surveys regularly complain about the shortage of talent in the workplace, said Paula Cunningham, state director of AARP Michigan.

Attorneys, environmental scientists and countless other professionals have dropped out of the workforce because they were needed as caregivers, Cunningham said.

“When you take, in Michigan, 800,000 caregivers out of the workplace because they're taking care of a loved one, that directly impacts employers,” she said in a briefing Thursday for reporters.

“Employers are losing workers, and unless they have some type of resources or some type of way to keep them in the workplace, they’re going to continue to lose them,” Cunningham said.

The AARP report estimates that 59 million Americans now serve as caregivers, contributing nearly 50 billion hours of care each year.

Their work would be valued at more than $1 trillion a year, if these folks were paid about $20 an hour for their services, according to the report.

The hours of care provided by these family caregivers is the equivalent of nearly 24 million full-time workers, or roughly 17% of the entire U.S. full-time workforce, the report said.

In fact, the value of family caregiving exceeds all federal, state and local Medicaid spending nationwide, researchers said. It’s almost double all of the out-of-pocket health spending that took place in the U.S. in 2024.

Worse, family caregiving has become more demanding as chronic illnesses have become more common.

“This is not my first rodeo,” one caregiver, Tracey from Ohio, said in the report. “I have been a caregiver for my older brother, then my father and mother, and now my younger brother. I have to plan everything around them and make sure that their needs are met, often before or instead of my own.”

The upshot: “Everything from their medication, food, paperwork, doctor appointments, housework and everyday care becomes your responsibility,” Tracey said.

Caregivers now average 27 hours a week providing care. More than half (57%) provide high-intensity care, helping with daily tasks like bathing, dressing, wound care and injections.

The AARP is advocating better support for family caregivers. It pointed to a tangible result of that effort: Oklahoma in 2023 became the first state to pass a statewide caregiver tax credit. Up to 12 states are now considering similar legislation.

“What unites all family caregivers is the substantial value their care provides — not only to those they support but to society at large,” the report concluded. “This unpaid care generates significant public benefit, including savings for taxpayers, yet it often does so at considerable cost to caregivers’ own health, well‑being and long‑term economic security.”

The AARP report is titled “Valuing the Invaluable 2026.”

More information

Pew Research Center has more on family caregiving in an aging America.

SOURCES: AARP, news release, March 26, 2026; Valuing the Invaluable 2026, March 26, 2026; Paula Cunningham news briefing, March 26, 2026