These boomers tried caring for parents. Now they have their own aging plans. – The Washington Post

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These boomers tried caring for parents. Now they have their own aging plans.

Baby boomers and Gen Xers are taking steps to ensure their children aren’t left with the financial and emotional toll of caretaking.

Today at 5:00 a.m. EST

7 min, By Shannon Najmabadi

Shannon is reporting on aging in America. Are you caring for an aging family member? Planning or paying for long-term care? Have an tip or noticed a trend? Please contact shannon.najmabadi@washpost.com or respond to our survey: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/11/18/elder-care-submissions/

Jocelyn Combs set up a filing box with her will and trust. She has designated who will have power of attorney, told friends and family where to find her passwords, and begun culling her possessions, save for mementosand other items she’s set aside for her daughter.

She also had an accessory dwelling unit built on her property in Pleasanton, California. A caregiver could live there, she said. Or she could, and rent out her house for extra income.

It’s all part of her aging plan, drawn from the often-overwhelming experience of caring for her own parents — who both lived into their 90s — and one legacy the 76-year-old is adamant about sparing her only child.Combs is still going through boxes of her parents’ belongings years later.

“It was brutal. The emotional toll, the financial toll, all of it,” Combs said. “I’m trying to set myself up to be less of a burden to my daughter.”

Baby boomers and Gen Xers are decluttering their houses, sifting through paperwork and making other end-of-life plans in growing numbers, older adults, andelder law attorneys and financial planners say. Surveys from the National Alliance for Caregiving and advocacy group AARP show 47 percent of family caregivers — mostly caring for aging parents or adults with disabilities — said they had such arrangements this year, up from 42 percent a decade ago. About half the caregivers report financial hardships, including lost income due to depleted savings, because of those responsibilities.

“We’re seeing a huge spike in elder care planning,” largely driven by adult children, said Gabriel Shahin, chief executive of Falcon Wealth Planning. “Ten years ago these conversations only happened after a crisis, now they’re happening proactively.”

More people are expected to shoulder caregiving duties as baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — age and lifespans increase. The number of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase more than 30 percent by 2050 — with these older adults making up 1 in 4 Americans by then, compared with about 1 in 10 in the 1980s.

The demographic changes are compounded by shortages of professional caregivers, typically aides or nurses who provide household or medical help that might otherwise fall to family members. Already, the number of family caregivers has increased 45 percent since 2014, according to surveys conducted by the caregiving alliance and AARP. About one-third of family caregivers have been providing that care for five years or more, one of those surveys shows.

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