America’s family caregivers would have earned about $375 billion in 2007, had they been paid for their services. This is up $25 billion from 2006.

“Valuing the Invaluable: The Economic Value of Family Caregiving,’’ a report from the AARP Public Policy Institute, estimates that 34 million American adults provide an average of 21 hours a week of care to an elderly parent or spouse. That work is valued at just over $10 an hour.

We can best support family caregiving by providing a stable, well-prepared direct-care workforce, says PHI’s Director of Policy Research Dorie Seavey.

“However, right now, we rely on the labor of roughly 3 million working-poor females, and also some men, who often cannot support their families with what they earn doing direct-care work,” she said.

The economic value of family caregiving exceeded total Medicaid long-term care spending in all states, according to the AARP. In 36 states, the value of family caregiving was more than three times that of Medicaid services.

The report also mentions out-of-pocket expenses for the caregiver, the health effects of heavy lifting, and the lost wages the caregiver could have earned doing their regular job.

PHI’s recently released issue brief on long-term care and job creation (pdf) shows that the lost productivity of family caregivers who are also employed is estimated to cost employers on the order of $33.6 billion annually, with a third of the costs attributable to workers either leaving their jobs or switching from full to part-time work in order to accommodate their family caregiving responsibilities.

“The family caregiving system in this country is increasingly stressed: as caregiving responsibilities grow, the adverse health impacts on caregivers are increasing and caregivers often end up quitting their jobs or moving from full-time to part-time work,” said Seavey.

“Investing in improving the quality of direct-care jobs should be a top priority of any caregiving agenda along with working toward an integrated policy agenda where family and paid caregiving are no longer treated as two separate worlds.”

PHI resources related to this topic:

• PHI national policy agenda on consumer direction and family caregiving (pdf)
• Better Jobs Better Care Issue Brief (pdf)
• Issue brief: Direct-Care Jobs & Long-Term Care: Untapped Engine for Job Creation & Economic Growth (pdf)

(hat tip to The New Old Age)