A friend called last week about her father. He is eighty-two, sharp, and set on staying in his own house. Her whole problem was finding someone to help him do it.
That search is the story of this decade. Aging in place is the plan to grow old in your own home rather than a facility. Almost the entire cohort wants it.
Wanting it costs nothing. Staffing it is the whole game.
Home care is the paid help that comes to the house. Bathing, meals, a ride to the doctor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects it to add more new jobs this decade than any other occupation in America.
Set the demand next to the crew you have.
6.1 million
Home-care jobs to fill by 2034. New roles, plus every worker who leaves and must be replaced.
3.2 million
Home-care workers on the job today. Their ranks doubled in a decade and still fall short.
Demand is the certainty. The bottom crew keeps draining. Roughly three in four home-care workers leave inside a year.
The reason the crew drains is the paycheck. The median home-care aide earns about seventeen dollars an hour. Below the checkout counter. Below the warehouse floor.
So this aisle runs backward from the rest. Most days I track a sure demand and the business waiting to serve it. Here the customers are guaranteed by the calendar. The scarce thing is the willing pair of hands. The worker, this time.
Which changes who wins. Finding the patients is the easy part now. The hard trick is keeping a caregiver on the job past the first year.
The squeeze keeps this honest. Medicaid pays the bulk of the bill. It is the government program that covers long-term care for those who qualify. A government rate does not move to match a good intention. So margin gets pinned between a rate it cannot move and a wage the worker keeps leaving behind.
There is a human floor under all of it. When no aide can be found or afforded, the work falls to family. On a daughter who works. The unpaid shift is the real rival here. It is why the demand on paper overstates the paid demand.
The arithmetic
Home care adding more new jobs than any other occupation this decade, roughly 681,000 by 2034, is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections. The 6.1 million total openings, the 3.2 million current home-care workers, the near three-in-four yearly departure rate, and the median wage close to 17 dollars an hour are from PHI, Key Facts for 2024 and 2025. Medicaid covers about 68 percent of home and community-based care spending, per PHI. The population 65 and older rises from 59.7 million to 72.5 million by 2034, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. The read that paid demand trails the demand on paper is Boomers Trade’s own.
My friend found someone for her father. Third agency, sixth week. The aide is kind. The hours are thin. Watch the wage line from here. The next years belong to whoever can keep a real person walking up that driveway.
Andrew
Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.
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