From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Supports for Family Caregivers in the U.S. vs. Abroad Description: Family caregivers--such as adult children and spouses--play a critical role in supporting the elderly population, which is growing at a rapid rate in the United States. However, these caregivers may risk their own financial security in retirement. We talk with Kris Nguyen--an expert on retirement security, and a director in our Education, Workforce, and Income Security Team--about a new GAO report that looks at how U.S. policies to support caregivers compare to those in other countries. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-623, Retirement Security: Other Countries' Experiences with Caregiver Policies Released: October 2020 [Intro Music] [Kris Nguyen:] HHS has taken steps and these effort will help in the development of the national strategy to provide support to family caregivers. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office-- I'm Holly Hobbs. Family caregivers--such as adult children and spouses--play a critical role in supporting the elderly population, which is growing at a rapid rate in the United States. However, these caregivers may risk their own financial security in retirement, as well as, needing to take time away from work to care for relatives, and they might even borrowing from their own retirement savings to support themselves and those they care for. Today we talk with Kris Nguyen--an expert on retirement security, and a director in our Education, Workforce, and Income Security Team--about a new GAO report that looks at how U.S. policies to support caregivers compare to those in other countries. Thank you for joining us Kris! [Kris Nguyen:] Thank you for having me! [Holly Hobbs:] So Kris, does the U.S. have a policy in place to help family caregivers who support the elderly? [Kris Nguyen:] Yes. The U.S. has a range of policies to provide help. An example of this is the Family and Medical Leave Act, which generally provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to eligible employees to provide care for a family member with a serious health condition. And another source of support is Medicaid. Some states provide home and community based long term services, which may allow Medicaid beneficiaries to pay their family members to provide care. And recently, in response to COVID-19, a federal policy was passed that required certain employers to provide paid sick leave, and it also allowed for expanded family leave. And this is effective through the end of this year. [Holly Hobbs:] And for your report, you looked at how other countries support their family caregivers. Which countries did you look at and why? [Kris Nguyen:] We looked at policies in three countries: Australia, Germany, and the U.K. We chose these based on two sets of criteria. First, we wanted to study countries that had a similar percentage of the population that is elderly. We also wanted countries to have a similar rate of informal care--that is family members providing care rather than professionals. And we also chose countries with robust systems in place to provide support to family caregivers. [Holly Hobbs:] And what did you find when you looked at these countries? [Kris Nguyen:] We found that all three countries have developed and implemented strategies, laws, and policies. And many of these policies have been in place for over a decade. To give you some examples, Germany and Australia have paid care leave. This type of policy helps caregivers to stay in the workforce while maintaining income. We also found that all three countries have income support, where caregivers were paid for time spent caregiving. And this type of policy helps supplement income, especially for those who need to drop out of the workforce and provide care. [Holly Hobbs:] So, did these countries face any challenges in providing these services that we might see if we tried to do something similar here? [Kris Nguyen:] We learned that there are a range of challenges that these countries face. And from the perspective of the employers, they might not always be able to accommodate workers because they don't have staff to replace them, or they might not be able to bear the cost of paid leaves. And from the perspective of caregivers, they might not be aware of these policies that are designed to support them. And the other side of that, governments face challenges in identifying caregivers, because they do not always self-identify. So it becomes a challenge for governments to make caregivers aware of the available support. [Music:] [Holly Hobbs:] So, it sounds like the U.S. has some supports for family caregivers. But that we're not providing as much support as other countries, which could leave our caregivers more vulnerable financially in their old age. Kris, is the federal government taking any steps to improve the supports for family caregivers? [Kris Nguyen:] The Congress passed the RAISE Family Caregivers Act in 2018. And this act directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a national family caregiving strategy. We found that HHS has taken steps towards developing the strategy. As an example, they convened the Family Caregiving Advisory Council. The council has issued a request for information on challenges faced by caregivers and HHS is going to use the results of that request for information in developing the national strategy. [Holly Hobbs:] So Kris last question, what is the bottom line of this report? [Kris Nguyen:] The bottom line of this report is that other countries such as Australia, the UK, and Germany, have years of experience with national level of support for caregivers--including paid leave, income support and a host of other supports. While these policies come with challenges it is useful to study the experiences of these countries, and learn from the challenges that they've raised. HHS has taken steps to do that, and these efforts will help in the development of the national strategy to provide support to family caregivers. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Kris Nguyen talking about GAO's recent report on retirement security issues facing family caregivers. Thank you for your time Kris! [Kris Nguyen:] Thank you. [Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. And make sure you leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.