Pulse issue · May 29, 2026
Today the care economy gets priced: West Virginia counts $3 billion in unpaid labor, a Colorado family documents $1.1 million against $33,614, and a Roosevelt study says senior care erases over half of middle-class wealth — even as Maryland cuts paid family care.
Listen · Pulse Daily · 4:47
Today the bill for unpaid care comes into focus — from West Virginia to Colorado to a Roosevelt Institute study on vanishing middle-class wealth — while states split between paying family caregivers and cutting them off.
West Virginia Puts a Number on the Caregiving Women Do for Free
375,000 West Virginians — most of them women — provide $3 billion in unpaid care a year, as a federal push presses more women back toward it.
Ellen Allen, writing in West Virginia Watch, reports that more than one in four adults in the state — about 375,000 people — are family caregivers, providing more than $3 billion in unpaid care each year. Women carry it: about 61% of family caregivers are women, a share that holds in West Virginia. Allen's argument is that the system stays standing only because women absorb the cost privately.
Read more →Today's briefs
A Caregiver Does the Math on Colorado's CARE Act, Live
One family documents the cost of caring for a mother with dementia — $1.1 million against $33,614 — as Maryland cuts paid family care.
The Same Care System, Graded Failing on Two Sides of a Border
A Roosevelt Institute study finds senior care drains over half of middle-class wealth, as Ontario's care policy earns a failing grade.
A Year of 3 a.m. Falls, and a Study That Explains the Bill
A first-person account of in-home eldercare meets new data on how senior care erases middle-class savings.