A recent study published by the AARP found nearly a quarter of Ohio adults are caregivers. More than two million people across the state are caring for others, and more than half of them are working while they care for family members. Jenny Carlson, State Director for AARP joined The Ohio Newsroom to discuss the details of the study.
On the definition of caregiving
“I love this question because caregiver means so many different things: caregiver could be a loved one that you take care of, that you are waking up in the morning and splitting their meds, making sure that they are having healthy meals, making sure that they're going to their doctor's appointments, exercising.
When we ask the question, are you a caregiver, part of that is education. Are you providing care to a loved one? Are you providing care to a neighbor? You could have someone that lives down the street that needs a little bit of extra help getting to appointments, taking care of their lawn, making sure that they have safety within their homes."
On the challenges that they face
"Most caregivers are also employees. They're working caregivers. And in this report, 41% of them reported financial setbacks. Individuals are now taking on significant debt, draining savings, struggling to afford basics like food and medicine, rationing care themselves. 80% of the caregivers pay out-of-pocket to help their individuals to receive the needed necessities to be able to age in place.
This report and AARP Ohio is trying to lift up that caregiving often comes at a cost to their careers. And more than half of our state's caregivers are also juggling jobs. And many reduce their work hours or leave the workforce entirely due to caregiving responsibilities. And so they're jeopardizing their own long-term financial security, they’re rationing, they're incurring debt."
On solutions
"These 2.2 million adults who are providing family care are holding up a leg of the broken healthcare system. There's so many pressures within the community, and then these individuals are providing over $21 billion annually in unpaid labor, helping their parents, their spouses, their loved ones to remain in their home as they age. And as a society, we need to do everything we can to help.
AARP is supporting the Ohio Family Caregivers Tax Credit, [we believe] that would ease the financial strain for working family caregivers and save vital taxpayer dollars. It's a non-refundable tax credit, and it would be for individuals, there's income guidelines, but it also would allow for them to take a reduction off their taxes, and it's also a way you know, employers can signal, ‘Hey, we appreciate you. We want you to remain in the workforce, because if you don't remain in the workforce, things are going to be impacted.’
The alternative choice is to go to nursing homes and the average annual cost living in a nursing home is about $110,000 dollars. And so 65% of Ohio nursing home residents are covered by Medicaid. So that becomes a bigger problem for government."
On the emotional aspects of caregiving
"It's challenging. What led me to AARP, quite frankly, is during the pandemic, my family we we were living in in a home that did not have a first floor master. And we couldn't get the resources because everything was in high demand to immediately build out on the back of our home to be able to accommodate moving my mother in. So we sold my mother's home, we sold our family home, and we moved into a new home where we have multi-generational living. It was a hard but easy decision to make.
Individuals need breaks. Individuals need to know that they're not alone, that there are other people out there providing care.
They represent 24% of the state population. So as a society, we just need to lock arms and continue to figure out what we can do to help support our aging population and our caregivers."
