As the cost of aging soars, families’ wealth is evaporating
Economists have talked about it as the greatest wealth transfer in history.
Baby boomers — boosted by decades of rising house prices, strong stock markets and economic growth — control more than half of U.S. household wealth. Estimates have predicted that $ 68 trillion to $ 84 trillion in money and assets will change hands over the next two decades.
But those estimates might not sufficiently account for the costs of growing old.
A Washington Post analysis of the finances of thousands of seniors in the last decade of their lives found that, for many families, the cost of care eats away much of what they had hoped to pass on.
Adult children, rather than being the beneficiaries of generational wealth, are in some cases spending down their own savings to pay for their parents’ care.
The Post examined data from the Health and Retirement Study. Since 1992, the federally funded survey has been following thousands of Americans from their early 50s until death, recording their finances every two years (regardless of whether they ever retired).
The Post focused on those who died between 2006 and 2022, totaling what they spent out of pocket on care in their final decade and assessing the impact in terms of categories of wealth.
The analysis found that the median American spent $ 19,179. One in 6 spent more than $ 50,000. One in 20 spent more than $ 100,000.
Within the time period The Post examined, the costs of aging grew more consuming. The share of people left with nothing after paying for elder care rose from 6 percent among those who died between 2006 and 2010 to nearly 11 percent among those who died between 2017 and 2022.
The costs fell hardest on those with the least: Among the poorest fifth of Americans in the analysis, 41 percent were left with nothing after accounting for their care costs in the years before death. Overall, this group spent nearly a third of their wealth on out-of-pocket care costs in the last decade of their lives — more than 20 times the share spent by the wealthiest fifth.
All the figures are almost certainly underestimations, as they don’t fully account for housing, such as room and board at assisted-living facilities. Those costs often make up the bulk of what families pay.
Most Americans in their later years are homeowners, and many have paid off their mortgages. When they need more care, they may make money from selling their homes.
But assisted-living bills can be a destabilizing shock compared with what seniors were paying toward property taxes and home upkeep. Nationally, the median cost of a private room and basic services was about $ 74,400 a year in 2025, according to a CareScout Cost of Care Survey. For those who need the more extensive services of a nursing home, the annual median cost was $ 129,575 for a private room. Seven years of that for someone with dementia, and the bills would add up to nearly $ 1 million.
The idea of a massive wealth transfer is misleading for that reason, said Forden, a PhD candidate at the New School. Her analysis of nationwide data from 1992 to 2022 found the typical middle- and low-income family never financially recovered after working through a lifetime of savings in retirement, widening the gap between rich and poor.
While elder care has long been expensive, economists and retirement experts say a confluence of factors has made it an increasingly urgent concern for many Americans.
Compared with past generations, people today have fewer children to help support them, and their families are more likely to live in different cities and states, meaning they need to outsource care.
Also, lifespans have lengthened. Medical advances have made it possible to successfully manage many chronic diseases. But that has people paying for more years of care than in the past.
Meanwhile, the costs of senior living facilities have soared. The median assisted-living rate increased 44 percent in five years, according to the CareScout surveys, nearly double the rate of inflation.
Experts and industry officials say the sheer size of the baby boomer generation is increasing the demand for resources and contributing to rising labor costs and, in turn, the price tag of long-term care.
Nearly 1 in 5 people will require high-intensity care for more than three years, according to 2025 research from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research. And yet many people don’t want to contemplate, let alone budget for, that possibility.
Experts say many people are particularly surprised to learn that Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older adults, doesn’t normally include long-term care. Only 3 percent of adults — 15 percent of those 65 and older — have long-term care insurance, according to the Center for Retirement Research.
That means that much of the cost of elder care falls squarely on families.
For more information see Federica Cocco and Shannon Najmabadi “As the cost of aging soars, families’ wealth is evaporating” The Washington Post, July 23, 2026