Caregiving comes in a variety of forms, including adult children taking care of aging parents and spouses taking on more daily responsibility for a partner with declining health. What might begin as casual help can often become a major commitment of both time and money.
For workers, these responsibilities can have seemingly opposite financial ramifications. While some may need to give up their job earlier than planned to provide care, others may have to stay on the job longer to replace lost wages or savings.
These impacts were highlighted in the 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald Research. Twenty four percent of workers who provided care said they had moved their target retirement date later. This compared with 17 percent of workers without such responsibilities.
Among retirees, 56 percent noted that they had left work earlier than originally planned, compared with 44 percent of non-caregivers.
Here’s how to recognize the hidden costs of caregiving and plan for them.
The financial burden of caregiving extends well beyond the money spent directly on care.
“You also have to think about what you as their caregiver may be giving up — salary, retirement contributions, an employer match, Social Security earnings and, potentially, years of compounding,” said Mary Ware, managing partner and senior wealth adviser at Carnegie Private Wealth.
Social Security retirement benefits, for example, are calculated using a worker’s highest 35 years of indexed earnings. Caregivers forced to leave the workforce before putting in 35 years may have to take zeros for some of those years, reducing lifelong Social Security benefits. Those who already have 35 working years in the bank may lose the ability to replace lower-earning years with higher ones once they leave the workforce.
Ware said caregiving also tends to become an issue in the prime of a worker’s life, typically their 40s and 50s. “It’s not the best time to step away, during the peak growth years of your career,” Ware said.
Planning is key
When families haven’t done the early planning, financial options for caregiving can become limited. “The worst time to make a caregiving plan is in the emergency room,” said Jennifer Szakaly, founder and CEO of Caregiving Corner.
Families that plan before the stress of an immediate crisis, Szakaly said, can discuss what the person receiving care wants, what the family can afford, where important documents are kept and who is realistically available to help.
Early planning also gives families time to discuss how to spread out caregiving responsibilities and prevent the burden from falling entirely on a single person, who may suffer significant damage to their career and retirement portfolios.
Because families may not know how long the caregiving will last, Ware emphasized the importance of seeing the whole picture before it’s too late. “Have these conversations as early as possible to gather the true cost,” she said.
Thanks to the Family and Medical Leave Act, eligible workers at covered employers may be able to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to care for a spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition. Employers may also offer paid leave or schedule flexibility.
A family in crisis may have fewer choices than one with a plan in place. Discussing care preferences, documents, costs and responsibilities in advance can allow the family to chart out a more flexible, workable solution rather than having an emergency dictate the course of action.
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