As the first baby boomers turn 80 this year, the demand for home healthcare workers is expected to surge. At the same time, the Trump administration is ramping up its campaign to deport immigrants, who make up about one-third of such care providers.
The White House’s approach has already had an impact on workers in the industry, who perform the intimate day-to-day tasks of caring for elderly and disabled people — including helping people bathe and get dressed and preparing meals for them —in exchange for relatively low wages. Hundreds of thousands of workers from certain Latin American countries, many of whom work as caregivers, are set to lose their work permits in April as a result of changes made by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, rhetoric from government officials and highly publicized deportations have alarmed immigrant workers in the industry. Many are taking steps in response, including minimizing unnecessary trips outside the home, according to one union leader.
If the Trump administration’s immigration policies continue in this pattern, experts warn that it will result in Americans’ loved ones going without care, turning to the so-called “gray market” to find off-the-books caregivers or relying on family members, who may need to cut back on their own work hours or leave the workforce altogether in order to provide care.
Even before the Trump administration launched its aggressive approach to immigration, the long-term services and support industry “was in crisis,” Jodi Sturgeon, president and chief executive of PHI, a nonprofit that tracks healthcare-workforce issues, told MarketWatch. Home healthcare providers already turn away more than 25% of referred patients due to staff shortages, according to the Home Care Association of America.
“Now it’s in further crisis,” Sturgeon said of the industry. “Caregiving is built on the assumption that there would be an unending supply of low-income women to provide care.”
With that supply threatened by the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration even as the older population is growing, baby boomers and their families are headed for a caregiving catastrophe. This won’t be a problem only for the patients and their families, experts say — it will cascade through the entire healthcare ecosystem and the employment economy.
“Immigrants play a huge role in our healthcare system,” Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, a nonprofit advocacy group, told MarketWatch. “Without them, people will have trouble finding care and will be forced to go without care.”
