It’s getting more expensive to hire home health aides—and a combination of inflation and increasing consumer demand will only raise prices in years to come, according to a new analysis from Lincoln Financial Group (NYSE: LNC).
Nationally, the average cost of a home health aide is $23 per hour. That’s up from $22 in April 2016.
For the first time, Lincoln Financial Group also projected how much home health will cost residents in different U.S. states in the future. For example, a home health aide in Minnesota will cost $100 per hour in 2056, when the population of Americans over 65 will have doubled, according to Lincoln Financial Group’s analysis. Currently, a home health aide in Minnesota costs an average of $31 per hour.
Right now, the five most expensive states for home health aides are:
1. Minnesota, $31 per hour
2. North Dakota, $29 per hour
3. Alaska, $28 per hour
4. Vermont, $26 per hour
5. Rhode Island, $26 per hour
The least expensive state for home health aides is Alabama, where the average hourly rate is $17. In Louisiana, West Virginia, Arkansas and Georgia, the average hourly rate for home health aides is $19.
These rankings have shifted slightly since Lincoln Financial Group first released them in April 2016. At the time, Hawaii and Iowa were among the most expensive states for home health aides, and Mississippi was among the least expensive states.
Meanwhile, the average cost of a licensed nurse is currently $131 per visit, and the average cost of a registered nurse is $139 per visit.
The What Care Costs website is meant to help financial advisors and their clients plan for their future long-term care needs. The website provides a searchable database of long-term-care cost information for states and metropolitan areas across the U.S. The data can be sorted by geography and type of care, and now, care costs can be projected well into the future.
Written by Mary Kate Nelson
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