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(Iowa) -- A new report finds the value of unpaid family caregiving in Iowa amounts to billions of dollars a year.
The latest Valuing the Invaluable report from the AARP finds that roughly 610 thousand Iowans provide care for older parents, spouses, other loved ones, and neighbors each year; that care being valued at $6.4 billion dollars a year if paid in the marketplace. That amounts to a market value of $20.55 an hour. The report finds the estimated hourly value amount for caregiving varies by state, from $14.12 an hour in Louisiana to $27.05 an hour in Washington State.
Nationally, an estimated 59 million Americans have provide caregiving to a loved one in the last year, with 37 million providing care each month, amounting to 49.5 billion dollars of care each year. At market value, that's roughly $1.01 trillion dollars of care each year, with an average of $20.41 an hour.
The full report is available on the AARP website.