63M
Americans provided care to an adult or child with a complex condition in 2025.
Free tool
See the career cost of care before it compounds.
A few reduced work hours can add up to years of lost pay and retirement growth. Estimate the cost, then bring the number to your family.
Free to use. Your inputs stay in your browser.
Your work
Start with the work hours you have cut
Enter the paid work hours you have reduced or expect to reduce. Leave the rest of your caregiving hours out.
Estimated impact
$71.3K
$71,269 in lost gross pay, missed employer match, and investment growth. Your own contributions are already part of lost wages, so they are not counted twice.
Lost wages 79% Employer match + growth 21%
Lost wages
$18,750 a year for 3 pre-retirement years. Includes the $3,375 you would have contributed.
$56,250
Missed employer match
A 3% match on the lost pay
$1,688
Lost investment growth
What the missed contributions would have earned by retirement at a 7% annual return
$13,331
Estimated total
Lost wages + employer match + growth
$71,269
Retirement account shortfall
How much smaller your account could be in 20 years: $3,375 you would have contributed, $1,688 match, and $13,331 growth. Already part of the total, not added again.
$18,394
What five work hours could protect
Keeping 5 paid work hours a week could protect about $35,635 of this value.
Those hours represent $9,375 in pay each year. Compare that with respite care, sibling support, or workplace flexibility.
Your numbers stay in the link, not on our servers. Anyone who opens it sees this same estimate.
This is an educational estimate, not financial advice. It does not model taxes, raises, Social Security benefits, pensions, health insurance, or career re-entry costs. Investment returns are not guaranteed.
The cost behind the care
The receipts are only the visible part.
Cutting your schedule can shrink your pay, break up your work history, and leave retirement contributions with less time to grow.
50%
of employed caregivers reported at least one work disruption.
35 years
of earnings are used in the Social Security retirement benefit calculation.
Sources: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the U.S. 2025; Social Security Administration.
How the estimate works
How we calculate your estimate
Lost wages use your salary divided across a 40-hour, 52-week work year, multiplied by the paid work hours reduced and the caregiving duration. Your own retirement contributions would have come out of this pay, so they are counted here, once.
Missed employer match applies the employer match rate to that lost pay.
Lost investment growth compounds each missed monthly contribution, yours and your employer’s, until retirement and counts only the earnings, not the deposits. If caregiving extends past retirement, only pre-retirement months are counted.
The estimated total adds those three amounts. The retirement account shortfall shown with it combines your contributions, the match, and growth, so it is already part of the total rather than added on top.
Use the estimate
Bring the number to your family.
Compare the estimate with part-time paid help, flexible work, family contributions, and benefits available to the person receiving care. It gives your family a concrete way to see how much one caregiver would otherwise absorb.
Read the full caregiving cost guideFor publishers and advisors
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