Have You Thanked an Informal Caregiver Lately?
By: Kathleen Bolger, KYC Caregiver Specialist
Informal caregivers are your family, friends, and neighbors who help those who need assistance, without getting paid for it. In 2025, 59 million people cared for an adult with a complex medical condition or disability, an increase of a whopping 48% over the last ten years! Informal caregivers are heroes who provide care, often at significant financial and personal cost, and they deserve our thanks.
Here’s why:
Informal caregivers save us money.
The value of their work in 2025 is $1.1 trillion annually. If informal caregivers did not provide this help, those who need assistance would likely be cared for in a facility, potentially at taxpayer expense.
Informal caregiving is time consuming.
About 25% of informal caregivers give 40 hours or more per week of unpaid care, and 35% provide more than 20 hours per week of care.
Informal caregiving negatively impacts paid work.
Seventy percent of working-aged caregivers are employed in addition to doing informal caregiving. Most are paid hourly, and may not have work benefits like paid time off and flexible schedules that would help them provide informal care. Many informal caregivers who are employed take leaves of absence, reduce full time to part-time work, have turned down a promotion, and/or received a warning about job performance or attendance.
Informal caregivers experience financial strain.
About twenty percent of informal caregivers report high financial strain. Many stop saving, dip into retirement savings, or borrow money from friends or family to assist the person they care for.
Informal caregiving impacts physical and mental health.
Almost twenty-five percent of informal caregivers had difficulty caring for themselves; twenty percent report their health as “fair” or “poor”. About half reported that they have a sense of purpose and fulfillment in providing unpaid care, while thirty-eight percent reported high emotional stress, and twenty-four percent reported feeling isolated. Feelings of stress, depression, and being overwhelmed are normal for informal caregivers. Feelings like these can make it difficult for caregivers to find fulfillment and purpose in their work. But, research suggests that caregiver training can lower caregiver stress, anxiety, and depression. When caregivers feel more competent, in control, and confident in their role, they tend to report lower levels of stress and depression.
Informal caregiving requires training.
Informal caregivers increasingly assist with incontinence, dressing, bathing, and standing and/or walking – activities that increase the likelihood of injury if not done properly. Those who care for people living with dementia must manage their own stress reactions as well as those of the person they’re caring for. Yet only 11 percent of caregivers receive the kind of training that helps to reduce injury and develop caregiver confidence and mastery.
How KYC Can Help
Our mission at the KYC Caregiver Resource Center is to help informal caregivers manage the complexities of caregiving. Whether it’s providing resources, skill development, planning for the future, hosting caregiver support groups, or helping caregivers get a break from caregiving – we are here to accompany informal caregivers as they do this critical and life-changing work. Please click here to learn more about our services.
And, stay tuned for an upcoming post about the importance of self care, and the classes KYC offers specifically for informal caregivers.
How You Can Help
If you know an informal caregiver, send them a note or card of recognition for all they do, and thank them. Offer to do their shopping the next time you’re headed to the grocery store. Offer to fill in for 3 hours each month, to give the caregiver a break. Call and ask the caregiver how they’re doing. Take a class for caregivers to learn the skills that will help you to help an informal caregiver. Contact KYC for more ways you can help.
Sources
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36068999/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6302747/
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