Elder caregiving is the benefits gap most employers have not costed. The published numbers are large enough that ignoring them is itself a budget decision, just an unexamined one.
The figure most often cited is roughly $35,000 per caregiving employee per year in lost productivity. Treat that as an order of magnitude rather than a precise number — the methodologies behind such estimates vary, and the honest use of it is to establish that the cost is material, not to put it in a business case to two decimal places.
What sits underneath it is better evidenced:
And 77% of employers say they are concerned that caregiving stress affects their workforce — which tells you the problem is recognised even where it is not measured.
This is not a static population. 74% of Millennial employees and 67% of Gen Z are caring for a child or expect to, and more than half of each group expect to care for an older relative at some point.
The demographic direction is one way. An employer treating elder care as an edge case today is planning for a workforce that no longer exists.
This is the most actionable finding, and it is about structure rather than spend.
When elder care is folded into a broader family-care lifestyle spending account, utilisation runs around 89%. When it is offered as a standalone caregiving stipend, utilisation is around 46%.
Same money. Roughly double the take-up.
The likely reason is not complicated. A standalone caregiving benefit requires an employee to identify themselves as a caregiver to their employer — a disclosure many people avoid, because they believe it will affect how they are seen. A broader account requires no such declaration.
If you have a caregiving benefit with disappointing utilisation, the problem may not be awareness. It may be that using it requires an admission.
Median funding across company sizes is around $2,500 per employee per year, with most programmes between $1,000 and $12,000 depending on size and structure.
Reported ROI ranges from 5% to nearly 300% — a spread wide enough that it should be read as "this can pay for itself, and the variance is in execution" rather than as a forecast. Anyone quoting you the top of that range without discussing design is selling.
Three things, in order of cost.
The cost of caregiving is already on your P&L. The only question is whether it appears as a line you chose or as turnover you did not explain.
The Care.com CareBenefits research and the SHRM and Employee Benefit News coverage of eldercare benefits carry the underlying survey data. For the utilisation contrast specifically, look for the lifestyle-spending-account comparisons rather than vendor case studies, which report on their own customers.