...The bulk of caregiving for the elderly, ailing, and disabled is still carried out by family members, who help their relatives with everything from bathing and dressing to preparing meals and managing medication. It’s decidedly unsexy,sometimes grueling domestic drudgery, mostly carried out by women who are hard-pressed to juggle these responsibilities with work and childcare—the so-called “Sandwich Generation” stuck between aging parents and kids. “It’s an invisible workforce,” says Carol Regan, a senior adviser and long-term care expert at Community Catalyst, a national health advocacy group.
That’s why it’s fairly remarkable that family caregiving has come up in the 2016 campaign at all. All three Democratic candidates have offered some form of support to Americans who take time out of the workforce to care for ailing adult relatives, with Hillary Clinton unveiling her plan last week. It’s the first presidential race in recent memory where leading candidates have highlighted the need to support caregivers for elderly and disabled family members—a shift that reflects not only a focus on family-oriented economic policies, but also the huge demographic changes on the horizon. About 12 million Americans, or 4 percent of the population, currently require long-term care—a number that is expected to more than double by 2050.