Unsticking the Sandwich Generation: Help for Families Caring for Aging Parents

SUMMARY

This memo brings attention to the rise of the “sandwich generation”—those families caring for both children and aging parents.

Two-thirds of American households are dual-earner families, and in addition to raising children while one or both parents pursue a career, more and more families are also caring for aging parents. This presents a new challenge: how to manage and afford the long-term care needs of fragile seniors. And government has yet to provide an adequate solution. In this policy memo, we lay out why we think long-term care is a critical issue for policymakers to tackle, and we propose a set of policy goals for answering this challenge.

To read this Memo, open the attached PDF