Caregivers and Retirement: Findings From the 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey

Summary

The Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) was conducted for its 36^th year in 2026 to measure attitudes toward, preparations for, and understanding of the various issues surrounding retirement of American workers and retirees. The RCS found that working Americans’ confidence in having enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement dropped in 2026 to its lowest level since 2017. Confidence in other aspects of retirement also declined, as debt and cost-of-living challenges have impacted many Americans.

In this Issue Brief, the retirement prospects, knowledge, preparations for retirement, and experiences in retirement are examined for those who are unpaid caregivers vs. those who do not provide this care. This builds on the 2023 publication that also focused on caregivers in the RCS. Caregivers in this survey are defined as those who provided unpaid care for an adult and/or child within the last 12 months in a noninstitutional setting and helped their care recipient with at least one activity of daily living or instrumental activity of daily living. A description of these caregivers, those to whom they provide the care, and actions they have taken in response to being a caregiver are enumerated before comparing caregivers vs. non-caregivers on many dimensions of financial attitudes, financial activities, and retirement preparations.

Key findings are:

• Caregivers were less likely to say that their health status is excellent or very good, less likely to have a household income of $75,000 or more, and more likely to be female. The share of caregivers who said that their health status is excellent or very good was 36 percent, compared with 45 percent among non-caregivers. Fifty-three percent of caregivers had household incomes of $75,000 or more vs. 62 percent of non-caregivers, while 61 percent of caregivers were female compared with 47 percent of non-caregivers.
• Caregivers were more likely to have lower levels of financial assets and more likely to have a problem with debt than non-caregivers. Thirty-four percent of caregivers had less than $10,000 in savings and investments compared with 25 percent of non-caregivers. At the same time, caregivers were more likely to say that debt is a problem — 69 percent compared with 57 percent among non-caregivers.
• Thirty-four percent of caregiving workers and 20 percent of caregiving retirees reported that they provide financial support to their caregiving recipient. Furthermore, 20 percent of caregiving workers and 15 percent of caregiving retirees had taken on new or additional debt as result of being a caregiver.
• The role and responsibilities of being an unpaid caregiver are more likely to have a negative impact on the caregivers’ mental health than on the performance of specific financial tasks, but a number of financial tasks are still impacted. Among caregiving workers, 64 percent said their mental health is negatively impacted by the caregiving, and 52 percent of caregiving retirees said their mental health is negatively impacted. The most impacted financial tasks among caregiving workers were saving for emergencies (56 percent) and working the hours they want or need to work (54 percent).
• Caregivers in the upper-income group ($75,000 or more) and the lower income group (less than $35,000) were more likely to be not confident in their retirement prospects than non-caregivers, but no difference in this confidence was seen among those in the middle-income group ($35,000–$74,999). Specifically, 32 percent of caregivers with incomes of $75,000 or more and 75 percent of those with incomes of less than $35,000 were not confident that they will have enough money throughout their retirement compared with 23 percent and 55 percent, respectively, of non-caregivers with these incomes.
• Lower- and upper-income caregivers were more likely to be not confident that they are doing a good job preparing financially for retirement than non-caregivers with the same incomes. Caregivers with the same incomes were more likely to be not confident in having enough money to keep up with the cost of living/inflation than their non-caregiving counterparts.
• Caregivers were more likely to express concern over various scenarios that could impact their retirement than non-caregivers. This included such scenarios as the U.S. government making significant changes to the American retirement system, an economic recession, housing costs rising, and having to provide care for a loved one who has a health condition or disability.
• Upper-income caregivers were less likely than non-caregivers with the same incomes to have done various retirement preparation tasks. This included such tasks as having tried to figure out how much money they will need to have saved by the time they retire so that they can live comfortably in retirement, having ever saved for retirement, having planned on how to cover an emergency expense in retirement, and having calculated how much they would need to cover health expenses in retirement. However, caregivers were just as likely as non-caregivers to have done various non-financial preparation tasks for retirement.
• Caregivers and non-caregivers who are offered a retirement savings plan cited the same top four most valuable improvements for the plans. These improvements included investment or insurance options that provide guaranteed lifetime income after you retire, more fund or investment options available/increased choice, better explanations for whether you are on track with your retirement savings, and more investment options designed for after you retire.
• The distributions of the ages at which both caregivers and non-caregivers retired were not different. However, caregiver retirees were more likely to have retired earlier than planned than non-caregiver retirees. Caregivers were more likely to have retired earlier than planned because they had to care for a spouse or another family member than non-caregivers, while non-caregivers were more likely to have retired earlier than planned because they could afford to do so and because they were offered an early retirement package from their employer.
• Caregiving retirees were more likely than non-caregiving retirees to rate their current lifestyle in retirement as fair, while non-caregivers were more likely to rate it as excellent. Furthermore, caregiving retirees were more likely to disagree that their lifestyle in retirement is what they envisioned and more likely to say that various expenses are higher in retirement than what they expected compared with non-caregiving retirees.

Despite caregivers being more likely to be not confident about many aspects of retirement and more likely to be concerned about various scenarios that could impact their finances and retirement than non-caregivers, caregivers were as likely as non-caregivers to have done various non-financial tasks to prepare for retirement. However, they appear to have fallen behind non-caregivers in many financial aspects. Thus, even though caregivers are doing many of the right things in preparing for retirement, they have not been able to strengthen their finances when providing caregiving.

Caregivers face many issues when providing care, including a negative impact on their mental health and being less likely to have confidence in their retirement prospects. Employers have opportunities to differentiate themselves and increase retention and attraction by helping caregivers through recognizing the challenges they face and providing the benefits and/or flexibility caregivers need to remain in the work force and/or be more productive workers. The results from this survey and other research will be part of a caregiving project that will develop, highlight, and disseminate the educational resources that employers would need to help employee caregivers become better prepared for retirement and have improved well-being.