How Would Social Security Caregiver Credits Affect Employment Choices?

Pamela Nadash, UMass Boston, Laura D. Quinby, Boston College, and Jane L. Tavares, UMass Boston

Family caregiving – providing unpaid supportive care for adults with physical, behavioral, and cognitive impairments – has been shown to negatively impact caregivers’ earnings and long-term financial well-being (the “caregiving penalty”). This mixed-methods study has three aims: 1) to show how Social Security’s progressive benefit structure currently offsets the caregiving penalty and how caregiver credits would further close the gap; 2) to document caregivers’ own beliefs about their financial situation in retirement; and 3) to assess whether caregivers would change their employment decisions if they knew that Social Security softened the financial impact of caregiving – currently through the progressive benefit formula, and in the future if caregiver credits were adopted.