A Crisis of Care

Senior care is crushingly expensive. Boomers aren’t ready.

Long-term care options are too expensive for middle-income Americans, narrowing options for millions of seniors

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Updated March 20, 2023 at 11:04 a.m. EDT|Published March 18, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Beth Roper, left, helps her husband, Doug Roper, get comfortable on a bench with the assistance of their daughter, Kathryn Roper, at a locked memory care facility in Poquoson, Va., where Doug Roper lives. He has Alzheimer's disease, and his care costs nearly $6,000 a month. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
12 min

Beth Roper had already sold her husband Doug’s boat and his pickup truck. Her daughter sends $500 a month or more. But it was nowhere near enough to pay the $5,950-a-month bill at Doug’s assisted-living facility. So last year, Roper, 65, abandoned her own plans to retire.

To the public school librarian from Poquoson, Va., it feels like a betrayal of a social contract. Doug Roper, a longtime high school history teacher and wrestling coach, has a pension and Social Security. The Ropers own a home; they have savings. Yet the expense of Doug’s residential Alzheimer’s care poses a grave threat to their middle-class nest egg. At nearly $72,000 a year, assisted living for Doug, 67, costs more than her $64,000 annual salary.