Washington has a caregiving problem. And I don’t mean the 63 million Americans in crisis providing unpaid care to aging relatives. I mean, Washington’s chronic inability to do anything about it.
Multiple caregiving bills sit in committee purgatory, languishing for years.
The RAISE Family Caregivers Act was passed in 2018, establishing a national strategy to support family caregivers, but it did not provide funding.
The Credit for Caring Act, providing a modest $3,000 tax credit for caregiving expenses, has been reintroduced session after session with no movement.
The lifespan respite care program receives $5 million annually, enough to serve 0.008 percent of family caregivers.
Meanwhile, the caregiving crisis has exploded nationwide. AARP’s 2025 report shows that caregiving surged by 20 million people in a decade, representing a 45 percent increase. The average weekly caregiving time has tripled since 2020, from nine to 26 hours. By 2030, older adults are expected to outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history.
And what has Washington’s response been? Thoughts, prayers and “National Family Caregivers Month.”
I’ve watched this failure from multiple vantage points. As someone who cared for my wife through cancer, after caring for my grandfather through dementia, I know the impossible math of caregiving. As founder of CareYaya, one of America’s largest caregiving platforms, and a researcher leading NIH-funded studies on caregiver training, I see how federal policy failures cascade into chaos for families.
The political dysfunction is bipartisan and equally maddening. Republicans block any meaningful investment in respite care, training programs or workforce development. Democrats propose expansive programs such as universal paid leave that aren’t budget-conscious and often go nowhere. Both parties miss what’s sitting right in front of them.
Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy got it right in his 2022 advisory, which positioned caregiver burnout as a national public health emergency. When caregivers are depressed or fatigued, there’s a 73 percent increase in emergency room use and nearly $2,000 in additional medical costs per patient. We’re hemorrhaging billions in preventable healthcare spending because we refuse to invest in caregiver support.
The solution isn’t more government programs. It’s recognizing an existing care workforce and treating them like professionals. Research shows that more than 56 percent of family caregivers are interested in training to work professionally, caring for patients in other households. We can create a workforce development pathway for millions of Americans who already do this work, want professional credentials, and could fill America’s healthcare workforce shortage.
It’s the infrastructure bill model applied to human infrastructure: create federal funding for caregiver training and credentialing; partner with community colleges for certification programs; provide professional pathways and let Medicare and Medicaid reimburse for trained family caregivers.
The economic case is overwhelming. We spend $5.6 trillion annually on healthcare, but family caregivers provide $600 billion in unpaid care. We’re running a healthcare system that depends on extracting free labor from families until they collapse.
The political case should be equally obvious. Caregiving is a rare issue with an actual bipartisan constituency — red states and blue states are similarly affected.
So why does nothing happen?
Because caregiving falls between every committee’s jurisdiction. It’s health policy, but also labor policy, family policy and aging policy. It’s everyone’s problem — and no one’s priority.
Meanwhile, the demographic wave approaches. By 2030, the “caregiver support ratio” of middle-age people in society to support every older adult drops from 7:1 to just 4:1. The system that’s already failing will face impossible demands.
During National Family Caregivers Month (November), both parties will issue statements celebrating caregivers’ sacrifices, host events and use the word “hero” a lot. Then they’ll return to D.C. and do exactly nothing.
Here’s a radically different idea: instead of celebrating caregivers’ sacrifices, let’s reconsider the expectations placed on them. Fund training programs. Create professional pathways. Recognize care work as real work. The legislative vehicle doesn’t matter — reconciliation, stand-alone bills, whatever. However, the window is closing.
In 2030, when older adults outnumber children for the first time, Washington will have two choices: point to a caregiving workforce we invested in and professionalized, or point fingers at each other while families drown.
Right now, we’re on track for the latter. And 63 million Americans are paying the price for our dysfunction.
