NM and America are getting grayer
Each year, 419,000 New Mexicans provide more than 274 million hours of unpaid family care.
At the national level, 53 million adults are unpaid caregivers for an adult or child with disabilities. More than 60% of those caregivers work and, of those, 61% reported an impact on their work.
Long-term care investments will be especially critical in the coming years. The demand for home- and community-based long-term care will increase significantly with the aging of the population — by 2060, there will be nearly 95 million adults over the age of 65, almost twice the number of adults over the age of 65 in 2016.
In August 2012, New Mexico ranked 39th in the nation in percentage of population age 65 and older. By 2030, New Mexico will rank fourth in the nation in this category.
Despite the growing demand for long-term care, there aren’t enough paid caregivers to provide these critical services. An analysis conducted in 2017 estimates there will be a national shortage of 151,000 direct care workers by 2030 and 355,000 workers by 2040.
We have an opportunity now to solve a growing problem before it becomes a crisis for us all. President Biden has put forward a bold proposal to spend $400 billion over eight years on home and communitybased services — a major part of his $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The plan proposed by the White House will expand access to quality, affordable home- or community-based care, while improving quality of care by boosting wages of caregivers. This is a win for caregivers and also for persons who are elderly and those with disabilities.
One of the specific things the plan will do is to provide low- and middle-income families a tax cut based on care expenses. Families can receive a tax credit up to half of their expenses related to caring for a child or a loved one with disabilities. With this expanded credit, families earning $125,000 can receive up to a total of $4,000 for one dependent or $8,000 for two or more. And, families earning up to $400,000 would get at least as generous of a credit as they receive today.
There are some problems that won’t disappear on their own. Long-term care is one of those problems. We can all do better by pushing forward an agenda that cares for New Mexicans.