In a few short years, more than 20 million Baby Boomers will be unpaid family caregivers — and most will never see it coming. It won’t be in the Monte Carlo simulations, the asset allocation models, or the day-trading DIY investor who can’t spell RMD. Whether you’ve handed your retirement over to a “fiduciary” or you’re running it yourself on a smartphone app, if there’s no funded plan for long-term care, you’ve already accepted the default: self-funding your care with your own time, money, and health — and working a second career in retirement you never applied for.

The Numbers Don’t Lie
Today, there are roughly 53 million family caregivers in the United States. About 34% of them are age 65 or older — more than 18 million retirees already working an unpaid caregiving job. Project that forward at just a 2.5% annual growth rate, and by 2035, there will be over 23 million caregivers aged 65+ — about one in four surviving Baby Boomers. That’s a quarter of an entire generation spending their retirement years in a second career they didn’t choose.

The Promises You Thought You Heard
Maybe you’ve heard We do better when you do better, even though no one explained how that works when you’re feeding a spouse or changing their sheets every morning.  How about Life Well Planned, without realizing that they were talking about the financial advisor’s life, not yours.  Or, maybe, Turn Here for What’s Next — when long-term care is literally a footnote in their annual retiree healthcare cost estimate.

The Omission IS the Plan
They say an omission is the same as a lie — and when it comes to LTC and Long-Term Care, there are few financial services firms one can trust.  According to most surveys, fewer than 20% of Americans¹ have addressed LTC, much less planned for it, yet most Americans are told their financial, tax, estate, and risk management planning is comprehensive.  But, what’s comprehensive about……

The adult daughter asks the CFP, who’s coordinating the home health care when Mom lives in Tampa, and she lives in Boston? 

Or, the son asks the estate planner which account the assisted living facility Dad visited and liked?   

Or, Mrs. Jones asking her CPA about the IRMAA notice and MAGI?  

The omissions are the plan, and that’s called the default, where millions of consumers or their loved ones will take on the unpaid caregiving role they never wanted.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
Every consumer should treat Healthcare In Retirement and LTC Planning as a core component of their comprehensive planning.  Their estate planning attorney should ensure legal documents address care funding and decision-making.  A tax professional must identify ways to pay for healthcare and LTC in the most tax-efficient way.  And, so it goes, by advisor, to planner, or agent.  The point is simple:  YOU have the ability — and the obligation — to demand these things from the professionals you’ve put your trust in, or for the do-it-yourself investor and the behemoths holding investments.

As 75 million Boomers head into and through retirement, the decisions and choices you make – or ignore - could have you heading into the future with a false sense of security, built on the lies, half-truths, and omissions.  It doesn’t matter what you did before you retired, and time is running out, as caregiving is the new career waiting for you.  Just remember that when you start that unwanted new role, it was entirely avoidable.

¹ OneAmerica. (2023). Long-Term Care Trend & Outlook Report, August 8, 2024

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