MetLife: Home Health Aide Wages Remain Flat in 2012

Long-term care costs continue to rise across the country for home care, skilled nursing, assisted living, and adult day services, reveals the MetLife Mature Market Institute in its 2012 market survey.

Home care continues to play an important role in senior care.

Although rates for adult day services ($70 a day) and home health aides ($21 an hour) remained unchanged from 2011 levels, wages for “homemakers” on the home care services side grew the most out of any long-term care service surveyed by MetLife, increasing 5.3% to $20 an hour.

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“The desire for families and friends to remain at home, or “age in place,” has created a diverse and dynamic home care service industry and a variety of service providers,” says MetLife.

The cost of a private room in a nursing home rose 3.8% to a national average rate of $248 a day, or $90,520 a year. The expense for a semi-private room increased 3.7% to  $222 a day, and an average yearly rate of $81,030.

Assisted living costs grew 2.1% to an average monthly rate of $3,550, or $42,600 a year.

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Generally speaking, monthly rates for assisted living and skilled nursing facilities were higher on the East Coast and in the New England region.

View MetLife’s Market Survey of Long-Term Care Costs for 2012.

Written by Alyssa Gerace