Unpaid Family Caregivers Provide $1.01 Trillion In Annual Economic Value

Unpaid family caregivers contributed an estimated $1.01 trillion in economic value during 2024, according to a recent report from the AARP Public Policy Institute. This figure exceeded total Medicaid spending ($932 billion) and total private health care spending ($968 billion) for the same year, and was nearly double combined spending on long-term services and out-of-pocket health care.

The estimate reflects the scale of unpaid care provided by approximately 59 million American adults (about 22.5% of the adult population), including roughly 37 million who provided care on a monthly basis. Together, caregivers provided 49.5 billion . . .