More Than 11 Million Americans Provide Unpaid Care For People With Dementia

During 2021, an estimated 11.3 million Americans provided unpaid care for people with Alzheimer-type dementia, according to a recent report by the Alzheimer’s Association. These non-professional caregivers provided an estimated 16 billion hours of unpaid assistance, valued at approximately $271.6 billion. The value of unpaid care is calculated as the average of the state minimum wage and the median hourly cost of home health aide. The estimate does not include the value of the non-professional caregiver’s time spent away from paid work, reduced productivity, or out-of-pocket costs. On average, the 11 . . .