WASHINGTON (Reuters)

President Joe Biden does not yet have enough support from fellow Democrats to secure US$400 billion in spending for at-home care for the elderly and disabled that the economy desperately needs, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Reuters on Monday (July 12).

Raimondo, who is paying for round-the-clock care for her own 90-year-old mother, said America’s aging demographics were going to hit the country “like a ton of bricks” without increased federal aid, and warned the current situation was “untenable”.

Failure to act, she said in an interview, would harm the US economy by making it difficult for women – who fell out of the workforce by the millions during the COVID-19 pandemic – often to look after out-of-school children or parents – to return to work or remain in the workforce.

As post-World War II baby boomers become senior citizens, there is a dangerous deficit of caregivers looming, Biden officials and many experts on aging say.

NUMBER OF PEOPLE OVER AGE 85 GROWING AT FAST RATE

Currently, 16.5 per cent of the US population of 328 million people, or 54 million, are over the age of 65, the latest census shows. By 2030, that number will rise to 74 million. The number of people over the age of 85, who generally need the most care, is growing even faster.

Biden in March proposed boosting Medicaid, the federal medical programme for lower-income Americans, by US$400 billion over a decade to fund at-home care for elderly and disabled people, and increasing wages for caregivers. He remains committed to that US$400-billion figure, Raimondo said.

She said details of the pending reconciliation bill – a Democrats-only budget measure that will include parts of Biden’s spending plans not included in a pared-down bipartisan infrastructure bill – were still being worked out.