Supporting Health & Financial Wellbeing of America’s Unpaid Caregivers

Summary

Caregivers are the backbone of society, helping people grow, heal, and age with grace and dignity. While caregiving is a big business worth $30 billion in the U.S. alone according to one industry report,1 unpaid caregiving is an even larger animal. The report Caregiving in the U.S. 2020—the result of a national study conducted by Greenwald Research on behalf of the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and AARP—found that one in five Americans provide unpaid care to a family member, friend, or neighbor, with a total that has risen in the last five years from 43.5 million in 2015 to 53 million in 2020.2 Estimates from 2017 place the economic value of that care at $470 billion.3

As the American population ages and more unpaid caregivers dedicate time to caring for loved ones, leaders in both the public and private sectors must find new opportunities to help them navigate the health and financial implications of their important role.