Demand and costs for care are rising at the same time that a labor shortage threatens to worsen. How can you plan for this need now?
Samir Shah is a forecaster — but he’s an expert on the U.S. long-term care industry, not the weather. Right now, he is seeing storm clouds gathering for the Americans who will need help with basic living needs in the years ahead.
“Demand is rising at the same point that supply is decreasing, and both are happening at a very rapid pace,” said Mr. Shah, chief executive of CareScout, a company that publishes an annual study on the cost of long-term care.
On the demand side of the equation is an aging population. In 2026, the oldest baby boomers will start turning 80, an age when the odds of needing care grow. The U.S. Census Bureau forecasts that the number of people 85 and older will nearly double by 2035 (to 11.8 million people) and nearly triple by 2060 (to 19 million).
At the same time, the care industry has a shortage of workers that is driven partly by low wages. The median hourly wage for all direct care workers was $16.72 in 2023 — lower than the wage for all other jobs with similar or low entry-level requirements, according to an analysis by PHI, a nonprofit research and policy organization.
Experts fear that shortage will be exacerbated by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Immigrants make up 28 percent of the long-term care work force — a figure that has been rising in recent years, according to KFF, a health policy research group.
The price of some long-term care services in 2024 rose as much as 10 percent, according to the CareScout study — more than triple the 2.9 percent general rate of inflation that year.