There is a price on a pair of hands, and it went up again this year.
Think of a caregiver who comes to help with bathing, dressing and getting out of bed. That help now costs a family $35 an hour. That is the 2025 national median from CareScout, the long-term care survey Genworth has run since 2004.
Book that help for 44 hours a week and the year comes to $80,080.
Most of us will not need it at 64. Plenty of us will need it at 84. The number of Americans 85 and older is on track to almost double by 2060.
Elon Musk has noticed the bill. At Davos in January, he said many of his friends find it very hard to care for elderly parents. He added that the care is costly. Then he pitched his humanoid robot for the job.
Tesla wants that robot on sale to the public by the end of 2027. The robot is the part you can see. The bigger money may sit in the AI that runs it, and in the companies that supply it.
One research firm thinks it has found a little-known supplier in that chain. Its case is just below.
Where the cohort sits this quarter, and why the hourly rate shows up here first.
Look closer at that hourly rate. It hides a gap.
The family pays $35. The aide earns far less. Direct care workers earned a median of $17.36 an hour in 2024. Home care aides sit at the bottom of that group.
A home care aide’s median pay for a whole year is under $23,000. Close to three in five lean on public assistance to get by.
So the job is hard to fill. It is harder to keep. PHI, a nonprofit that tracks this workforce, counts 8.9 million direct care openings between 2024 and 2034.
The family pays roughly double what the worker takes home. The difference has an owner.
So who sits in the space between $35 and $17?
The home care agency. It recruits the aide, runs the schedule, carries the insurance and sends the bill. The difference covers those costs, the payroll taxes and the agency’s margin. Many of those agencies run under a national franchise brand.
The catch lands on the family budget. Care costs rose about 3% last year, close to inflation, CareScout says. That sounds calm. It is not.
But the bill comes due every week, often for years. Ten years of full-time help at today’s median runs about $800,000, before a single price increase.
And that bill is paid in dollars. The national debt passed $40 trillion this year. People my age are right to ask what that does to a dollar’s buying power over a long retirement.
Some savers answer by holding part of their money in physical assets like gold and silver. One firm wrote a free guide on why.
The arithmetic
Non-medical caregiver at $35 an hour, up 3% from 2024, and $80,080 a year at 44 hours a week: CareScout (a Genworth company) Cost of Care Survey 2025, released March 2026; the survey has run since 2004. Direct care median wage of $17.36 an hour (2024), home care aides’ median annual earnings under $23,000, 59% relying on public assistance, and 8.9 million job openings from 2024 to 2034: PHI, Direct Care Workers in the United States: Key Facts 2025. Americans 85 and older nearly doubling by 2060: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, citing PHI. Musk’s remarks on elder care and the end-2027 public sale target for Optimus: World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2026, as reported. National debt above $40 trillion: Treasury data, as reported by the Associated Press, 2026. Ten years at $80,080, about $800,000, and the family paying roughly double the worker’s wage ($35 against $17.36) are Boomers Trade’s own arithmetic.
CareScout publishes its next survey in the spring. Watch the hourly line, and watch the aide wage beside it. Before then, try one question at a family dinner: who helps, if help is needed? Then put a price on the answer.
Andrew
Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.
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