From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: The Financial Risks of Caring for Retired Family Members Description: We explore the possible impact for those caring for related retirees in this podcast. Related GAO Work: GAO-19-382: Retirement Security: Some Parental and Spousal Caregivers Face Financial Risks Released: May 2019 [ Background Music ] [ Charlie Jeszeck: ] It has a real definite effect on people's ability to work and also to save for retirement. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome the GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. The number of Americans aged 65 or older is on track to double by the year 2050 and adult children and spouses often provide critical help for this segment of the population. I'm with Charlie Jeszeck, an Education Workforce and Income Security director at GAO and he led a report that took a look at how this caregiving can affect those family members who provide support, particularly in terms of their finances. Thanks for joining me, Charlie. [ Charlie Jeszeck: ] Thank you. [ Matt Oldham: ] How big of an issue is this then? [ Charlie Jeszeck ] It's actually much larger than people really, I think, typically think about. Our report focused on caregiving to parents and to spouses and this is really quite -- quite a broad phenomenon. For example, we found between the years 2011 and 2017, on average, about 45 million adults each year provided care to either a parent, a spouse, or another relative. And of those, 26 million provided care explicitly to a parent or spouse. [ Matt Oldham: ] And so, is this care that is outside or in addition to some of the available federal government programs and services? [ Charlie Jeszeck: ] Yes, it's typically spouse or child will provide care directly to a parent or -- or their spouse. You know, it could be once a week, it could be multiple times per week. We found, in fact, that in many cases, this kind of care can go on for years. I think, on average, it was for about three years. In some cases, people -- a significant number were providing care for 10 years or more. [ Matt Oldham: ] And what did you find is the impact this sort of care is having on the caregivers? [ Charlie Jeszeck ] Well, it has a number of effects. We found that it has a real effect on people's workforce participation. So, for example, we found that over 60 percent who were providing care reported that they were working fewer hours or had to leave work early. About 15 percent said that they had to cut their work hours back and it was even more pronounced for people providing spousal care, whereas over 20 percent were reducing their work hours. With regard to retirement, this compounds over time if you're putting -- you're working less and you have other strains on you from caregiving, you're likely saving less for retirement, so this is problematic. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So, it sounds like many of the caregivers we're talking about are experiencing not only immediate impacts, like having to work fewer hours, but many are also putting away less money for their own retirements. So, what can people do to help avoid some of these immediate and possibly compounding effects that we're talking about? [ Charlie Jeszeck: ] Well, I think one of the things we looked at -- we looked at a variety of public policies that could be done, and there are a lot of -- a lot of innovative things that are going on, a lot of different ways to think about it. For example, you can reduce the cost of caregiving, some states have passed laws for a Family Medical Leave, there's a national federal Family Medical Leave Act, employers can provide additional sick days for people to take time off and take -- to provide this caregiving. People have talked about social security, changing -- making some changes to Social Security to the extent that people leave the workforce to provide caregiving. There could be some sort of credits provided to those individuals. Of course, that would cost the program money, but those have been the kind of proposals that have been kicked about and thought about at -- at the federal and state levels. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, final question, what do you believe is the bottom line of this report? [ Charlie Jeszeck ] Well, caregiving is a much broader phenomenon than people think about it, it's something that's going to increase over time given the demographics of the population. And it has a real definite effect on people's ability to work and also to save for retirement, so this is something that the federal government's going to have to pay attention to in the years to come. [ Matt Oldham: ] Charlie Jeszeck led a GAO report on the financial impacts adult children and spouses can face when providing elder care. Thank you for your time, Charlie. [ Charlie Jeszeck: ] Thank you. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.