Caring for an aging parent can quietly drain your savings, stall your career, and delay your own retirement. In this video, Debbie Carlson, whose reporting appears in Barron’s, breaks down the financial realities of eldercare and how to plan before a crisis hits.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Joining me now is Debbie Carlson. She’s a contributor to the Wall Street Journal and to Barron’s.
Debbie, it’s always great to see you. Thanks for popping by the program this morning. Thanks for having me.
Well, we were just talking about this in the virtual green room. Caregiving is a big topic these days. You recently wrote a piece, and I want to get into this, that people who are caregivers, they’re around my age, they’re caring for loved ones, and that may take them away from doing their full-time job because they might have to leave and care for their loved one.
And that has an impact not only on their job, but also their ability to save for retirement.
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
Absolutely. The genesis of the story idea was a recent study that came out of Pew Research that said that people in their 50s are starting to take on more caregiving role, especially for older parents. And normally, this is something when we think of the sandwich generation, we think about you’re in your 40s, you’re raising your kids and taking care of elderly parents.
But it’s now stretching into the 50s, and part of it is people are living longer. So our parents are living longer, which is a wonderful thing. But as we get older, they get older.
And when caregiving in your 50s hits, it comes at what’s a really precarious time, because when we think about our 50s, that is usually when we’re at our peak earnings. This is opportunity to maybe supercharge our retirement savings. And we think about like catch-up contributions, right?
If you’ve been able to max out your 401k. However, if you have to take off time for caregiving, it’s just this double whammy of not only may you have to take off time for work, you can’t save for your retirement. And it’s very possible that you may have to supplement your aging parents care.
So it really just comes at this precarious time where you may not be able to make up some of that lost time.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So lost earnings, but also lost savings potential. Delayed or delayed savings potential. Do we have a sense for the size of this population?
We were talking about it in the virtual green room. We have an aging America, just like other societies around the world. So I would assume it’s growing at the people in this category.
But do you have a sense for how big this is relative? Ballpark, I’m not asking, I’m not quizzing you, but just a sense for how big this population is.
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
I’m not exactly sure, because I didn’t really look into that. But as you imagine, it’s definitely hitting Gen X, but it’s going to start hitting millennials. And millennials is a much bigger population than Gen X is.
So this is going to start hitting more people. And there was an Alliance Life annual retirement survey that came out last year that showed 60% of the people that they surveyed didn’t expect to have to do this by the time they reached their 50s. So this is just going to continue to grow.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
How are employers reacting? And when I say employers, I’m thinking the larger corporations that employ many people. Still, I think small businesses employ the great majority of Americans.
But let’s talk about corporate America first. How are they or are they adapting to this environment? Because they want these workers to work for them, because there’s a lot of intellectual capital that they want to retain, and also it helps their business.
But are they adapting to this? Are they reacting to this?
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
So I spoke to two people who for this story, and one of the women who I spoke to said that she can’t look for a full-time job because it’s just not compatible. She’d have to do something remote, fully remote. So she can’t even look for something full-time, she told me.
And this other woman who I spoke to is a financial advisor herself, which is interesting. And she had to essentially take three months off of work to deal with a crisis for her mother. And then as she mentioned, it’s going to have just ramifications further down the line because she was not able to look for new clients in the meantime.
And as far as corporate America, we have things like paid time off, but that’s limited. And it all really depends on your company’s policy, I imagine. I mean, I can’t speak for every company, obviously.
But as Kimberly Rand, which is one of the women I spoke to for this, she had mentioned that that is something you may have to look at. And it really is going to vary from person to person. But I get this sense just from people who have read this article and have emailed me specifically saying that this is invisible crisis that just isn’t being talked about.
So if I were to say anecdotally, there’s probably not much discussion about it.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And that seems surprising because a lot of the senior managers are probably at these big corporations and benefits and CFOs, et cetera, are in, they’re of my generation, I’m a Gen Xer, they’re probably in similar circumstances. And they may have the resources to deal with it, but certainly their employees, presumably, don’t.
I would think that in terms of attracting employees, trying to offer some kind of flexible work schedule would be attractive, especially for people in this category.
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
It would make sense. But anecdotally, we can see just from the news that there’s this pushback to get away from flexible schedules, right, to get away from remote work. So it seems like we’re going in the opposite direction.
And I also have this sense that we’re not really planning for it because, again, in this story, Rand had said, and Lori Frankel, the other person I spoke to, is they had tried to speak to their parents about, hey, let’s make some plans, let me help you with this. And their parents kind of push back on this. And it’s very well possible that the parents are not looking as their adult children as people who can help them, but as their kids still, right?
You’re never going to ever look at your child as not necessarily a child.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. Well, I would say that my parents like to dress me. So, you know, they still think of me as a little baby.
I’m joking. But, you know, they like to suggest that. And I get that.
I think that is a valid argument. I wonder, you know, there’s so much going on. And our show is not a political show, but I would imagine there’s a lot of policy.
This is one of many policy issues. Obviously, you’ve got Social Security, Medicare, health care costs are expensive. I would think that, you know, I know aging and caregiving and long-term care are things that are being talked about at the federal, state and local level.
I would imagine this has to be at the top of a very big agenda when Congress comes back to work in the lame duck and also in January.
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
Well, you know, there’s discussions about Social Security, that’s, you know, for certain. But as far as caregiving, you know, I’m not sure if we’re talking about this. And from my interviews with the two women for my story is they both emphatically said, no, there is no safety net, like you’re you’re responsible for this.
And Rand said time and time again, is that she said, especially this view is like an adult daughters is, of course, you’re going to quit your job. Of course, you’re going to do this. This is your job.
So there was the sense that, no, this is this is up to you. And we’re all on our own.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, that’s, you know, obviously, you have to, you know, there’s a self determination, we’ve got to take care of our loved ones. I mean, that should be there. But at the same time, you know, we’ve got the social safety net that exists when people fall down, and hopefully they can use it to kind of bounce back up, you would think that this would could be expanded.
And again, I’m not asking for the federal government to take on more responsibility, therefore, more debt, but there’s got to be a way through private organizations and governmental organizations to come up with, for example, having caregiver, like a caregiver road service. So like, like an Uber for caregivers, where people can go to and from like a like a network, right, that could help out and spell a family member, if they have to go to work, and they’re trustworthy, they’re vetted.
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
That would be nice. One of the women in my article said that she pays about $100 a day for adult daycare for her father. And, you know, she’s making very little money because she’s only working two days a week, which is essentially those days that her dad is in care, but she has to fill in everything else on those two days.
So according to her, she’s like, it’s just not like the programs that are out there, like they don’t qualify for. So, you know, there’s a lot of holes. And, you know, it seems like it could be a good business opportunity for someone, but that’s beyond that’s beyond.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I mean, I’m thinking like an Uber, or, you know, none of them are sponsors of the program, Uber, Lyft, whatever, whatever these companies are that have the connectivity. They already do serve seniors and that they can pick people up. They have special specialty apps that, you know, can help you if you can’t see, they give you a little bit more time, you would think that it could be connected to a caregiving service and try to create like a little network in a community to help people out.
At the end of the day, we’re all going to be caregivers, we’re all going to receive or we’re going to receive caregiving, or we’re all going to need long term care. It’s not like we’re immune to this. Yeah, it sounds like a business plan, Jeff.
Well, one that I’m not qualified to do. I’m not a commentator. I’m just a facilitator.
Debbie, it’s a great piece. I think it’s thought provoking, great research by the Pew Research Center, but great articulation by you. And hopefully people will pick this up and maybe the financial services industry can partner with the health and welfare industry to try to come up with a solution.
At the end of the day, if you’re an employer, you’re going to be dealing with this. Debbie Carlson, it’s always a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us.
And look, we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Debbie Carlson, Contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s
All right. Thank you.
