Support Family Caregivers

Goal: Informal, unpaid caregivers are the bedrock of the long term care system in Texas. They need workplace policies that support the care they provide to their loved ones.

Problem: Despite losses to both employers and employees, only 23 percent of companies with 100 or more employees have programs in place to support caregivers. Sixty percent of caregivers make informal arrangements at work; however, many company policies do not explicitly allow or define these supports.

Recommendation: The Disability Policy Consortium supports legislation to allow employees to utilize existing sick leave provided by employers to care for family members with serious health conditions.

Despite the challenges of balancing work and care giving, many of these caregivers prefer to continue working. Their jobs not only provide money to meet their responsibilities, but also respite (temporary relief) from their care giving role.

Background/Justification: Supporting family caregivers matters:

• To government: There are 393,000 older adults and non-aged Texans with disabilities who qualify for Medicaid that instead receive all of their care from unpaid family members. If these individuals were instead to receive care in a nursing facility paid by Medicaid, the annual cost is estimated to range from $2.7 billion to $10.7 billion.¹ About 10 percent of family caregivers who take unpaid leave to care for a family member are forced to go on public assistance during unpaid leave.
• To business: 94 percent of employees who take family leave and receive full pay during that time return to the same employers. 76 percent of employees who take unpaid leave do not return.² The costs to businesses to replace caregivers who quit their jobs because of caregiver responsibilities have been estimated at $3.3 billion.³ Support for family caregivers improves employee productivity by creating reducing stress and decreasing error rates of employees who need and can utilize time off.⁴ Because many employees take leaves of absence or stop working temporarily or permanently to care for a loved one; employers find that care giving directly affects worker productivity, employee turnover, absenteeism, and early retirement.
• To families: Family caregivers personally lose about $660 thousand over a lifetime: $25 thousand in Social Security benefits; $67 thousand in pension benefits; and $566 thousand in forgone wages.⁵ More than 6 in 10 family caregivers juggle work with care giving responsibilities in order to meet their own financial obligations and the costs of caring for a seriously ill loved one. 78 percent of informal caregivers have needed but not taken unpaid family leave because they could not afford it.⁶

¹Legislative Budget Board Staff. Texas Government Effectiveness and Efficiency, January 2007.
²Family Caregiver Alliance. Support for Working Caregivers, 2006.
³Metropolitan Life Insurance Company & National Alliance for Care giving. The MetLife Study of Employer Costs for Working Caregivers, June 1997.
⁴Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Estimating the Benefits of Paid Family and Medical Leave: A Colloquium Report.
⁵Family Caregiver Alliance.
⁶National Partnership for Women and Families. Where Families Matter: State Progress Toward Valuing America’s Families, 2006.